Archive of Our Own ^beta

“So what did you think?”

Seokjin shrugged, noncommittal – what had there been to think? The showroom had been well-presented, with LED screens displaying what the views from the windows would be. His unit would be on the thirty-fourth floor, south-east facing – the sales director had pressed a button and the screens had changed views accordingly to show an approximation of this.

Upon leaving, Seokjin had gazed at the half-finished apartment building slowly rising into the heights of the residential area. So there, then – there he would go. He had been starting to wonder.

“I’ll have a view of Namsan Tower,” he said to Hoseok, turning the meat on the grill in the busy barbeque restaurant. “Most importantly, I can move in at the start of next month.”

Hoseok broke into a smile and congratulated him, and Seokjin tried to match his enthusiasm but faltered. He had spent the past few weeks desperately house-hunting, shocked by the prices and adjusting his expectations. Now, the two-bedroom apartment in Mapo-gu had promptly emptied his bank account of his life savings.

He put the tongs away and called out, “Could we get some more pork belly?”

The ahjumma called back with a yes – Seokjin had missed that: being able to shout his orders across the room. It had been rude to do so in Sydney, but each day that Seokjin woke up on Hoseok’s couch reminded him vividly that he was not in Australia anymore.

“Well, dinner’s on me tonight,” Hoseok offered, pouring him more of the soju.

“Wasn’t Yoongi supposed to join us?” he asked as he sipped from his glass. “And Namjoon, too, wasn’t he finally supposed to come?”

“Ah, I know,” Hoseok said, reaching for his phone. “But Yoongi texted something about a crisis with the orchestra. Didn’t you read the messages? And Namjoon, well don’t take it personally, I’ve barely seen him either. Let’s send them a picture, though!”

Seokjin automatically did a V with his fingers as Hoseok snapped a shot of them. “I love it!” Hoseok declared and typed quickly on his phone. Seokjin’s phone beeped in his pocket accordingly.

In the group chat for the four of them, Hoseok had sent the picture with: you guys are missing out!! The group chat was years old but not overly active: maybe something a few times a month, like an apt meme or a “guys it’s been ten years since we did that hiking trip to Sokcho”, and everyone would respond in shock over the passage of time. It had picked up lately, though, since Seokjin had announced his return.

Seokjin had done a pretty good job at staying in touch with his friends even as his years abroad had kept piling up. Whenever he’d visited, his friends had gathered in joyous and often boozy celebrations – we’re still good friends, Seokjin would think, pleased, and then leave for another year.

Now he realised how little those glimpses had shown him. He’d had no idea Yoongi and his wife had spent a year in couples’ counselling but were now doing much better, or that Hoseok had almost quit halfway through his residency because the stress got too much. Whenever he would visit for a weekend, his friends had showed good sides of themselves only – it had been kind but superficial.

Thankfully those pretences had started to fade now that he was back, and to his relief he still liked his friends for who they were in the present day, and not only for who they had been back in their university days. That had been a bigger relief than he’d want to admit.

Still, he was disappointed that everyone was always so busy, even if he had partly expected it. And Namjoon, that ungrateful art nerd hadn’t come to see him at all yet! He knew that the two of them were the least close within their small group – already in university, Namjoon had somehow lurked behind the backs of Yoongi and Hoseok whenever Seokjin showed up. Still, he’d thought Namjoon would at least try to reconnect with him.

As he and Hoseok talked about his new place, it became clear that Hoseok was more excited about it than he was. Funny. Buying his own place should have felt like a milestone, but he had been a homeowner before. Two bedrooms with a balcony in Rose Bay. A forever home!

When he and Jangkun had separated, they had sold the place to a lovely couple from Canberra for a seventeen percent profit.

Rose Bay was a world away from the tightly packed streets of Sindang-dong, the smell of frying meat clinging onto their clothes as they made their way home. Seokjin breathed it all in, letting it fill his lungs. He had become accustomed to viewing Korea through the lens of an ex-pat in the grips of nostalgia. You couldn’t be nostalgic about the world you were walking through, however. Did he feel at home? No. Did he feel completely out of place? No, not that either. So where did that leave him?

The moon floated above them, covered by a night-time smog like it was out of focus. Seokjin let himself fall behind, breathing in the winter air.

That’s what I am, he thought: out of focus.

Hoseok left for his morning shift illegally early, but Seokjin rolled over on the couch and slept some more, eventually getting up at ten o’clock.

He wasn’t unemployed, despite appearances to the contrary. He just had not taken on many jobs while changing countries to keep the chaos manageable.

After a shower, he studied his reflection in the mirror of Hoseok’s sparkling bathroom: his clear skin and dark eyes, his red lips and his black hair, none of it too shabby for his age of thirty-four. He still turned heads when walking into a room, hell perhaps now more than ever – like fine wine. He brushed a hand through his hair, then rubbed over the stubble at his jaw.

He found a razor in his toiletries bag – no shaving cream, but Hoseok had some. “What’s mine is yours!” Hoseok had insisted when he had taken Seokjin in on the day he had landed in Seoul, tail between his legs, looking for a place to stay. Even with the massive hole in his savings account, Seokjin was glad he’d bought a place at last. After all, you could only stretch the hospitality of your nearest and dearest so far.

Behind the shaving foam and toner in the cupboard, he found an opened box of tampons. Apart from the photobooth pictures on the kitchen fridge, he hadn’t seen much of Hoseok’s girlfriend Yoohyun. Was Hoseok too polite to have her over? Yoohyun still lived with her parents too, so how were the couple making do? Two-hour rentals at motels? Going cold turkey? Hoseok said that they planned on marrying soon: Hoseok was finished with his residency, but Yoohyun was still working on her PhD.

Everyone had grown up in his absence. Hoseok was now the superstar of the children’s ward in a private hospital; Yoongi was tied up at the philharmonic practising fervently for the Sibelius festival; and Namjoon had his gallery and, of course, his hands full at home.

Shaving slowly, Seokjin wondered if he had grown up at all while his friends had become full-fledged adults.

He and Jangkun had attempted maturing, of course, when they’d moved to the suburbs of Sydney. The irony was not lost on him because they had thought themselves so grown when moving to Australia in the first place: graduated with their degrees, with military enlistment served. Real adults now, with real jobs lined up!

In reality they had spent half a decade loitering around Darlinghurst like young brats until they had seen all that the gay bars on Oxford Street had to offer – twice over. With enough time even the yearly Mardi Gras started feeling repetitive. Their twenties ended, and they’d had the money and the inclination to reorientate their lives.

In Rose Bay, Seokjin had started each day with a run, usually to Nielsen Park, watching the high-rise buildings of the city across the water, sometimes counting the boats that floated past him. By the time he came home, Jangkun would have left for the bank. He’d shower, have breakfast, and retreat into his home office – he worked five or so hours a day. He didn’t need to put in more: the money was good.

After this he’d head out to meet up with a friend, or he’d move to the living room to play video games. Sometimes he’d go shopping and often he’d cook dinner. Jangkun would be back around seven in the evening, unless they had agreed to meet up somewhere nice for dinner or a movie…

What a good life. An easy life.

With that kind of a routine, he had fallen into the routines of others, too. On his morning run, he always passed a young Chinese woman walking two poodles: one chocolate, one vanilla. Further up his route he passed an elderly Jewish man, ripped as anything even in his eighties, running in the opposite direction. With enough repetition, they started saying ‘good morning!’ to each other.

A year into this routine, Seokjin started seeing a man his age in Nielsen Park. Not every morning – the man had no clear schedule that he could discern. Was it every Tuesday and Thursday? Perhaps every other day? The man’s runs would appear regular, but suddenly the man wouldn’t be there for weeks, until one morning he was there again. Seokjin noticed the toned, tanned, blond Australian because he was attractive. January was the hottest month of the year, and the man ran in shorts. Yes, Seokjin noticed.

More than that, he noticed the man noticing him. Their eyes would meet, with a nod of recognition passing between them. What was that recognition? Was it something he had seen in the bars on Oxford Street, cast his way from men sipping their drinks, looking for the night’s entertainment? The kind of gaze he’d used to enjoy, as had Jangkun – a reminder that they were desirable? Had it only taken a generous year in the suburbs for Seokjin to forget what that gaze felt like? Was he simply imagining it now on his morning runs?

One morning the man would be there – then he would disappear again. When he reappeared, they seemed to lock eyes earlier, bridging a further distance. A dark gaze. Knowing and inviting.

A nod.

They’d keep running past each other.

On one rainy morning, Seokjin pulled on his running gear, and Jangkun said, “Really? You wanna go for a run in this weather?”

“Ah, it’s nothing,” he lied, his stomach sinking.

He started feeling guilty about leaving the house in the morning. Was he having a crisis? What kind: midlife, quarter life, suburban life? How much would a good shrink cost to tell him?

Even so, he fantasised about the day when the man would slow down in his steps. Seokjin, too, would stop. They would just stand there, looking at each other. Then the man would nod to the trees and lead the way. Seokjin would hesitate – it was only polite to at least hesitate. Perhaps the man had something to ask him?

Once out of sight, the man would push him against a tree trunk – kiss him senseless. He would turn Seokjin around, yank both of their running shorts down, spit on his hole, and push his co— No, god, he couldn’t let this man fuck him raw! He had to think of Jangkun’s health – barebacking with strangers was a step too far.

Okay, okay, the man magically had a sachet of lube and a condom on him, and then he would push a huge, thick cock into him, and he would fuck Seokjin hard while saying, “Every morning I could tell you wanted this, you filthy little cock slut”, and Seokjin would have tears in his eyes from getting fucked so good.

Afterwards they would part without a word, or was that too heartless? Perhaps the man would have a business card with something like James Campbell, landscape architect and he’d explain where he lived (in the nearby neighbourhood, of course) and encourage Seokjin to call him for round two.

Seokjin would fix his hair and finish his run – get home.

Shower.

Start his day.

Wait for Jangkun to come home in the evening. Greet him: “Hey honey, how was your day?”

And never say a word.

He examined his reflection in Hoseok’s bathroom mirror.

He had been bored out of his mind in Rose Bay.

Yoongi, black-haired and sleepy-eyed, was engulfed in a black hoodie and holding his second coffee of the day like his life depended on it. He was flipping through the brochure of Seokjin’s new apartment in the steady bustle of the café . “And they said the construction finishes soon?”

“Yeah, and I really need to give Hoseok his place back. I don’t think he’s been able to hook up with Yoohyun for weeks.”

“Oh?” Yoongi snorted.

“I think he’s worried it’d be uncomfortable for her to visit when I’m there.”

“Mm, or maybe he’s worried she will take one look at your handsome face and fall for you?”

“What, she’d fall for a gay man? Good luck to her,” he laughed, and Yoongi grinned, taking another sip of the coffee.

Seokjin had reluctantly let his parents know that he intended to live in Seoul now. They had been surprised, and Seokjin had even more reluctantly told them about his and Jangkun’s breakup – it had happened a long time ago now, but he simply hadn’t gotten around to telling them.

He did not give them any details; did not tell them that one evening he and Jangkun had sat down in the living room and, without much prompting, simply asked: “Are we happy?” Neither of them had been. A whole decade spent together, and they had grown apart.

His family had never particularly liked Jangkun, but he doubted they would ever like any man their son shared his bed with.

Even so, Yoongi had consistently been making time for him amidst orchestra rehearsals.

“We’ll help you unpack when you get to move in,” Yoongi offered, but between Hoseok’s twelve-hour shifts, Yoongi’s manic practising for the philharmonic’s festival, and Namjoon’s persistent absence without leave, he could not see his friends having time to help him move.

“Thanks,” he said anyway. “I appreciate that.”

Yoongi headed out ten minutes later, apologising that he couldn’t stay longer but that they’d have dinner together soon. For now, his wife’s parents were in town and Yoongi was tied up being a good son-in-law. “Thankfully they’re leaving soon – you know what they say about guests: after three days they start to stink.”

Seokjin sometimes wondered if people were aware of what they said, and to whom.

After Yoongi had gone, Seokjin got out his laptop, getting another drink and shaking his head at the programme files his client had sent him. Who had coded this? A nine-year-old? No wonder they were riddled with bugs and error messages…

He got to work, seated upstairs in the café. It was quiet at first, then busy around lunchtime, then quieter again. He had a third, then a fourth coffee, and a chicken salad too, buzzing out of his skin but with laser sharp focus as he coded.

When he looked up, it was dark outside. He had been in the café for seven hours. He clicked ‘Send’ with the fixed files, along with an invoice for thousands of AUD. Shit, that was another thing: he needed to close his Australian accounts and figure out the easiest way to get international payments to Korea.

“Thank you,” he called out to the café workers as he walked out, and their response was just as automatic and corporate-dictated as with any other customer: they hadn’t noticed him working there all day.

He took a taxi back to Hoseok’s, talking about the national football team with the driver, pretending to be all up to date just to see if he could trick this man into thinking he was a loyal fan.

All day in the café, and no one had missed him.

Maybe that was the hardest part to get used to.

Namjoon finally made his grand entrance on a Tuesday afternoon. Seokjin was working at Hoseok’s dining table, just in his sweats because he did not intend to go anywhere that day. The front door beeped open as the code was pressed in, but Seokjin did not look up from his screen.

Instead of Hoseok’s usual cheery “hello!”, however, firm steps approached the living room and came to a stop with an “Oh.”

Seokjin looked up.

Kim Namjoon was standing in the entryway, carrying a plastic bag.

“Namjoon-ah!” he exclaimed, standing up – pleased but caught off-guard. “There you finally are! Yah, what did I need to do? Send a search party?”

“Hyung,” Namjoon replied – blinking, processing, as if unsure why Seokjin had been sitting at Hoseok’s dining table, or why there were two large suitcases tucked into the corner between the balcony door and the couch.

It was Yoongi who had found a nineteen-year-old Namjoon in his Music Theory Basics class a long time ago and incorporated him firmly into their friendship group. Hoseok had been pleased to have a same-age friend, while Seokjin had always considered Namjoon as the baby of the group – not just in age, but as the last to join.

At first Seokjin was sure Namjoon had disliked him. Namjoon would be talking to Yoongi and Hoseok loudly, laughing away, but when Seokjin showed up, he’d turn quiet and stary. With time, though, Namjoon had grown out of his shell. Namjoon had still been doing his art history degree when Seokjin had moved abroad with Jangkun, but Namjoon had never visited them in Australia like Yoongi or Hoseok had. Their friendship felt awkward without the other two to glue them together, making them into a quartet – when left alone, Seokjin was sure that they both wondered what to talk about one-on-one.

These days, Seokjin thought this might be friendship by proxy: him and Namjoon archaically linked through Yoongi and Hoseok.

Their reunion hug was brief – a bit awkward, but substantial enough for Seokjin to note that goddamn, Namjoon definitely worked out: Namjoon was tall, muscular, and dimpled – brown-haired and brown-eyed, taking his early thirties in his stride.

Seokjin smacked his arm. “Yah, do you know how many dinners you’ve missed by now? And how many messages you’ve ignored?”

“I know, I know – I’m sorry, hyung, I really am. Please tell Hobi I’m sorry, too.”

The plastic bag was full of empty food containers to be returned to Hoseok’s parents, with sincere thanks from Namjoon. Namjoon had been meaning to drop them off for weeks now but simply hadn’t had the time.

Namjoon looked like it, too: a little harassed, a lot tired. His socks were a mismatch.

Even so, the taupe oversized cardigan on him was cool. That was what Namjoon had become in the past decade: effortlessly cool. It was funny because Namjoon had been such a goddamn try-hard when younger, overusing slang words and wearing sunglasses indoors. Seokjin had been endeared and at times annoyed, teasing his dongsaeng often. That had not made Namjoon warm up to him.

At some point, however, Namjoon had become genuinely cool with a homey fashion sense, a lot of browns and earth tones, loose jackets with tactful tassel details that somehow did not look ridiculous. Artsy and hip.

Seokjin in his purple sweats and unwashed hair thought it unfair that Namjoon looked better put together than him, especially in these circumstances.

“Do you have time for a coffee?” he offered, pottering around Hoseok’s kitchen.

Namjoon sat down at the dining table. “I’ll have a water? But I can’t stay long – my sister is waiting.”

“So that’s how you got out,” he said, pouring them both a glass, hoping they would have enough things to talk about for this reunion not to feel awkward. “Big life changes for you, eh? You know you look just about as shit as any new parent I’ve ever met?”

“Ouch, hyung,” Namjoon said but laughed tiredly, dimples deep. “I’m not covered in spew and shit right now. Doesn’t that count for anything?”

“Sounds like a wild night at a drag bar to me,” he said and sat opposite Namjoon. It was fairly evident that Namjoon had forgotten Seokjin was staying with Hoseok, with the way he’d marched in.

Never mind that because Seokjin was a smooth talker. He transitioned swiftly to talk about his apartment-to-be, telling Namjoon all about the windows, the views, and Namsan Tower. He said nothing about Sydney and the life he had left behind – the people he had left behind. He had to focus on the future, not ruminate the past.

Despite this, Namjoon said, “It must be weird being back though. No?”

Namjoon’s gaze was observant and curious. Hoseok assumed that Seokjin was thrilled to be in Seoul again, while for Yoongi his return was a missing puzzle piece slotting into place: unsurprising but pleasing. Seokjin hadn’t expected Namjoon to dig a little deeper.

“It is weird to be back, sure. Sometimes I walk down the street and perk up like, oh hey someone’s speaking Korean over there! Then I realise that of course I’m overhearing Korean because I’m in Korea. So yeah, I have moments where I forget where I am.”

He didn’t say how frequent those moments were and how harrowing he found them.

“Hey, do you need a ride back?” he offered eventually, noting the subtle but finite way Namjoon put his glass down, signalling intention to go.

Namjoon looked surprised. “You’ve got a car?”

“Yeah – I had all those house viewings to get to, so I rented one for a few weeks. I need to get groceries anyway.”

He couldn’t tell if Namjoon really wanted a ride, but he pushed it.

Five minutes later they were buckled in, and he’d put Namjoon’s address into the GPS.

He was trying to relearn the city – it wasn’t the same as it had been in his university days. The cafés he knew were gone; the shops he’d liked were gone. He was still trying to reconnect the dots between where everyone now lived and how to get there, and he wondered if Namjoon could tell.

They talked about Seokjin’s work, with him saying that the best thing he had ever done was deciding to work for himself. The clients had lined up, and his hourly rate had skyrocketed compared to what his old company had paid him. Yes, he intended to set up a home office in his place once he got there – he’d had an adjustable standing desk in Sydney, and it’d worked great. He had to get one of those.

As they headed north of the city centre, he realised he had said the S word.

“What did you do with your furniture, hyung? Leave it all there?”

He drummed the wheel – his chest felt tighter whenever he thought back to his final months, final years, back home. Former home.

“I sold half of it in one big swoop to a second-hand furniture centre. Gave a lot of stuff away too – packed only what I thought was essential, and I still had near forty boxes. Don’t ask me what that cost to put on a cargo ship, but it’s why I’m on Hoseok’s couch and not a hotel.”

“Pricey,” Namjoon said, a solid and large presence in the seat next to his. “Guess people only do transcontinental moves like that rarely.”

“Yeah.”

It’d been hard: deciding. Committing. Everyone in their twenties raved about these “digital nomad” lifestyles – Seokjin could have done that too: take himself around the world, taking his work with him, and never belong anywhere.

Somehow that option had felt even worse.

He dropped Namjoon off outside a new looking building up in the hills of Buam-dong. He did not need to ask if the gallery business was lucrative – Namjoon’s living quarters spoke for themselves.

Namjoon got out, hesitating. “Ah, I’d ask you to come up but it’s pretty chaotic – not really visitor ready. But I’ll come to that dinner next week. I really will, I promise.”

“Sure, no problem,” he said, leaning over the mid-console to peek at Namjoon. “And hey, good to see you, man.”

Namjoon gave him a smile, but something forced lurked in it. “Yeah, you too. It’s… It’s great to have you back.”

Namjoon disappeared into the building before Seokjin realised that he had not asked Namjoon anything about his life, nor had Namjoon given him a single piece of information about himself apart from his address.

Friendship by proxy.

A move to Rose Bay had signalled, quietly but benignly, that he and Jangkun had reached a certain age: one where you wanted to hear birds chirping outside your window, and not someone throwing up in the alleyway. In Rose Bay they bought groceries at the upscale organic supermarket instead of living on cup noodles and take outs.

Playing successful adults.

Seokjin’s days of mid-week partying and bar-crawling were over, the memories of it loud and sweaty and undignified. There was nothing wrong with growing past all that.

Imagine his surprise, then, that he was prowling the streets of Itaewon after too much soju on a Thursday night. He had met up with Jinwoong, an old school friend of his, and had pushed him into a taxi back to his wife after too many rounds. After that he swayed on the pavement, watching the mix of locals and foreigners filling the streets.

He had promised Hoseok that he would be out until late, after Hoseok had said that Yoohyun might be coming over that evening. Seokjin got the hint – he would stay out of their way!

He messaged Yoongi in case he wanted to meet up, but Yoongi did not respond. He did not text Namjoon for obvious reasons.

He knew, of course, that there were gay bars in this neighbourhood. He had even visited a handful of them way back when, but he doubted those exact ones existed anymore, or they would have flashy new names and refurbished interiors. He went to a regular bar that was trendy with a good whisky selection and wondered what to do with his evening as he sat on one of the barstools.

He was more than surprised when he got hit on there, by a man. He looked around in case there were rainbow flags somewhere to indicate what kind of a bar it was, but he didn’t see anything of the kind. Huh. What had given him away?

Hoseok and Yoohyun got their privacy, then, as after a few drinks he and the guy headed to a hotel. The guy paid for the night, too, because at their age you couldn’t be bothered hurrying out after a two-hour rental.

“What do you like?” the guy asked, unbuckling Seokjin’s belt, their mouths chasing each other’s in the privacy of the hotel room.

“Everything,” he said – the alcohol making him bolder, flirtier, more confident.

“Lucky me,” the guy said, hand slipping down the front of Seokjin’s jeans.

In the morning, Seokjin washed his face in the bathroom, the alcohol drumming in his veins and stomach. Shit, he’d forgotten how lethal soju was. The night before was a blur of hands and mouth and cock – well, he still had it in him. Good to know.

A knock against the door frame. The man from the bar stood there in a rumpled suit and a nice smile on his lips. Handsome, for sure – a player. He’d approached Seokjin with, “So why’s a fine specimen like you drinking alone?”, and a light touch to his arm that could not be misinterpreted. Seokjin could play that game: be confident, cocky, adopt the meaningless sex persona. It’d been good stress relief.

Yet Seokjin knew he and this man were not the same. “Thanks for the great time,” the man all but purred.

“Yeah, you too. You going straight to the office in the same clothes?”

“Stopping at the drycleaners to pick up a fresh suit.”

“You’ve got it all planned.”

Another wink – and the man was gone.

Seokjin exhaled, happy to be alone again. He squeezed the edges of the sink.

Nothing felt like anything.

He walked back out, sitting on the edge of the hotel bed.

Nothing felt like anything.

He reached for his phone and found a few messages from Jinwoong lamenting a hangover, from Hoseok asking him where he was and reminding him of their lunch date, and a missed call from an unknown number that had left a voicemail. Brushing a hand through his hair, he listened to the message.

“Shit,” he groaned, closing his eyes.

He let himself fall back on the bed that smelled like a man whose name he had never stopped to ask.

Namjoon had a kid – a baby boy called Jungseob, named after the famous painter who Namjoon would endlessly talk about if you let him. Namjoon, the maknae of their quartet, had been a father for a few months now. Intellectually, Seokjin knew this, yet he did not internalise it until he walked into the Chinese restaurant at lunch hour and got to their table. There, in a baby carrier by Namjoon’s feet, was an infant in a green jumpsuit, wrapped up in a knitted cream blanket. A baby. There really was a baby.

Holy shit, Namjoon really did it.

A part of Seokjin was surprised that Namjoon hadn’t knocked someone up way before this – he could not recall a time Namjoon had been single for very long. There had been the high school sweetheart Hyojoo with whom Namjoon had spent his first year of university, then there’d been that exchange student Mollie, who had been sweet and clever, and after that Namjoon had fallen head-over-heels for that smiley girl Eunchae, and then… Aish, he was forgetting someone.

If Namjoon had brought a baby to one of their gatherings many moons ago, Seokjin would not have been surprised.

As such, seeing little Jungseob now was confusing, when Namjoon did not have a slim and accomplished woman clinging onto his arm. Instead, Namjoon had texted their group chat the day after his thirtieth birthday with, guys I’ve decided to become a father

sure which denomination? Seokjin had sent back.

Fast forward a year and a half and…

Jungseob slept in the carrier, his little, puckered mouth in a small ‘o’.

“Sorry I’m late,” Seokjin said to his friends before leaning over to coo at the sleeping baby, sticking to cliches: “Ah, Namjoon-ah, he looks just like you! What a strong little guy he is, eh? He’ll win Olympic gold in weightlifting! Become president! Watch out, ladies!”

Namjoon looked at him like he was amused but tired of the theatrics. “Hyung, quit it. Everyone knows you don’t like babies.”

Seokjin straightened his back, offended. “You make it sound like I actively go around trash-talking infants – I just don’t gush for no reason.”

“But isn’t there a million reasons to gush when you’ve got such a cute button nose?” Hoseok crooned, craning his neck to look at Jungseob with distinct heart eyes. Seokjin shot a look at Namjoon: see? Some people loved every baby they saw, like Hoseok. Some people didn’t make much of any baby they saw, like Seokjin. Yoongi was probably somewhere in the middle.

He unbuttoned his coat and hung it at the back of the chair and offered proper greetings to everyone. This was the first time Namjoon had come to meet with them – Namjoon had been in baby lockdown when Seokjin had landed in Incheon. Hoseok took a group photo to commemorate their first proper reunion. Reunited at last! Seokjin’s throat was dry, his chest uncomfortably tight.

One morning he would wake up and be happy to be here. One morning…

Seokjin had felt guilty for not asking Namjoon anything about being a new parent when they’d last met, and so he made an effort through his hangover. “What’s Jungseob like then? Is he serious, is he funny?”

“He’s mostly stary,” Namjoon offered.

Seokjin laughed. “Okay, fair. Babies don’t do much, huh?”

“Oh? Eat, shit, sleep. That’s three,” Namjoon counted with his fingers, again glancing over to check on Jungseob.

“Cry?”

“Four,” Namjoon sighed, studying his child.

The first few months of parenthood had been absolutely exhausting, but Namjoon said he was getting a handle on it now. Today was Jungseob’s first time in a Chinese restaurant! Ha. Easy to have new experiences when you were ten weeks old.

Jungseob breathed evenly, fast asleep, and Namjoon frequently checked on him. The waitress cooed at a sleeping Jungseob when she brought their food over, and Namjoon was starting to look worried that she’d wake him up. “What a handsome baby he is!” she told Namjoon as she put down their four orders of jjajangmyeon. The others were drinking water – Seokjin had ordered himself a beer.

Seokjin didn’t get it. If a man turned thirty and wanted a family, he did not get a surrogate and pay sickening sums to become a father – he would get married. Namjoon deciding to forego that was a complete mystery when he was nothing if not an eligible bachelor, with his own gallery and relative fame in the arts world (from what Seokjin knew, anyway). Namjoon could marry a dozen, nay two dozen accomplished, beautiful, baby-fevered women within a few months if he wanted to.

Seokjin had said as much to Hoseok over the phone, but Hoseok hadn’t had any answers. “I don’t know, he’s just told us he doesn’t want to wait anymore.”

“But why would he do it alone? I mean, who’s gonna marry him when he’s already made a baby with some anonymous college student who was selling their eggs to keep the heating on?”

“Someone will. Babies can be like catnip, you know. And hey, maybe it’ll signal he’s a devoted dad? Some girls might be into that?”

Seokjin thought that the world wasn’t riddled with evil stepmother stories for nothing.

Hoseok might have been right, however: Jungseob with his chubby cheeks and tuff of jet black hair was pretty cute for a baby. Add the tall, muscular, dimpled father on top, with his own gallery in Insa-dong and a wife-shaped space in his bed needing to be filled? It might be the perfect deal for someone.

Deep down, however, seeing Jungseob did not make Seokjin understand Namjoon any better than before. Maybe Namjoon had turned into a misogynist in his older age and wanted nothing to do with women? But he quickly remembered Namjoon marching at many equal rights protests on campus – and no. No one changed that much.

Halfway through their meals, Namjoon froze and said, “Hobi-yah, do you hear that, how he’s breathing? That’s what I meant when I called you the other day. Is that normal, that kind of rhythm?”

“It’s not a heart defect, Joon-ah,” Hoseok said from across the table. “I’ve told you – he gets ten out of ten on being perfect.”

“Right,” Namjoon said but worry was etched to his brow.

Hoseok shot Seokjin a look. Hoseok had mentioned that Namjoon had taken to calling him several times a week with a new potential health condition he’d invented for Jungseob. “It’s just nerves – he’s doing it all alone, after all,” Hoseok had said.

“Hyung, what happened to you last night?” Hoseok prompted, changing the subject from Namjoon’s blossoming Munchausen’s by proxy.

Seokjin had showered at the hotel but was wearing yesterday’s clothes. “Ah, Jinwoong got so drunk that I had to take him home. Then I was so drunk myself that his wife made up their guest room for me.”

Yoongi was looking at him carefully from across the table. “You were trashed last night and already back to it? Don’t drink too much, hyung.”

“I drink in company. I never drink alone,” he said emphatically. Drinking alone was a dangerously slippery slope. Drinking with friends? Sociable and welcomed. He took a long sip of his beer to help his hangover, not thinking about how he had been drinking alone at the bar last night, only to be picked up by a stranger.

Yoongi shrugged and returned to mixing his noodles while something in Seokjin sank. Did his friends really think he was drinking too much? More importantly, was he?

“Where does Jinwoong live?” Namjoon asked, slurping on his noodles but eyeing the baby carrier.

“Mapo-gu. Quite near my new—” he began to lie, smoothly as anything, before he remembered why he was in such a bad mood. “Shit, you know they called me? The construction company – said it’s going to take a month longer than anticipated for the place to be ready?”

Hoseok’s eyes widened. “What?”

“Figures,” Yoongi said, reaching for the pickled radish on the table.

“They gave me a completely different date when I signed the papers! How the hell could the deadline be pushed back a whole month in only a matter of days?”

He stabbed at his noodles viciously, his foul mood returning. He would not go live with his parents. He would not go live with his parents. His brother lived in Gwangju now. Would he go live in Gwangju, with his two nephews running around the place?

“God, they fucked me over – I bought the place because it was nearly complete. Fuck, sorry, can I swear with the baby here? Good, thanks. Hey, don’t worry, Hobi-yah, I’ll look for short-term rentals tonight.”

“They’re extortionate,” Yoongi said, and Seokjin refused to think of his maxed-out credit card. The prices in Seoul were ridiculous! But he would not go live with his parents – would not call them, would not ask for help.

“You can stay as long as you want,” Hoseok assured, but Seokjin held back a scoff. For months? On the couch of Hoseok’s well-kept but still extremely compact apartment?

“Honestly, don’t worry about me – I’ll find something.”

He’d felt like a leech since he first landed.

“Namjoon has a spare room,” Yoongi said. “Two, even.”

Seokjin’s eyes landed on Namjoon in surprise.

Namjoon looked equally taken aback, eyes fixed firmly on Yoongi. Something silent seemed to pass between them, while the implication finally dawned on Seokjin.

“He has a baby,” Seokjin said, motioning towards the baby in the seat carrier.

Yoongi shrugged. “Jungseob doesn’t need a bedroom. Where does he sleep?”

“In the cot by my bed,” Namjoon responded automatically.

“See? That leaves a ton of space – and an actual extra bedroom, instead of Hobi’s couch. Just crash with Namjoon for a while.” Yoongi gave him a slightly evil smile – at least, Seokjin could swear it was evil. “Be a good uncle to Jungseob.”

Seokjin scoffed. “Stop that already, I’ve never heard of a worse idea and you’re putting Namjoon on the spot. That’s a full house with a new-born, and I would—”

“You could,” Namjoon said, and Seokjin paused. Namjoon’s brows were in a deep frown – thinking, but Seokjin could not tell what. “I mean, he cries a lot, but the second bedroom isn’t next to mine. And you’re a deep sleeper.”

Nothing, not even an earthquake, could wake Seokjin up.

Be that as it may—

“Aish, that’d be an impossible arrangement. Yoongi was just kidding, we—”

“Come by tomorrow,” Namjoon said, returning to his noodles a little hastily. “It’s a couple of weeks, hyung. It could work.”

Hoseok was nodding too. Seokjin was outnumbered, hungover, and stunned.

“Sure,” he said, just to get everyone to stop. Cohabiting with a ten-week-old baby was not what he needed in his life right then. Hell, cohabiting with Namjoon, even if there had been no baby, would have made him hesitant. The two of them were too estranged to live in such close quarters.

If they had been better friends, he might have considered Namjoon’s offer – maybe. Perhaps. He was certainly desperate enough.

But living together in these circumstances? Absolutely not.

He shifted in the chair, feeling sore from the way he’d been fucked hard and long the night before. He made sure it didn’t show – there was a baby in the room, after all.

Namjoon’s gaze on him lingered, making Seokjin feel nervous and ill at ease, and he shut himself up with the noodles.

Seokjin paid more attention to Namjoon’s neighbourhood this time, driving up into the hills of Buam-dong where the streets were cleaner and the houses bigger. Namjoon’s apartment building was made of white stone with large, blue-tinted windows. It had three storeys above the parking hall that had been built into the street level foundations. There were six car spaces, with the others empty as he pulled in mid-afternoon. The code that Namjoon had texted opened the doors to the lift tucked away at the side of the parking hall.

The building was nice. The neighbourhood was nice. He’d passed a few cafés where he could probably get some work done… No, he wasn’t considering this – it would be uncomfortable and awkward for both of them. This was just a courtesy call!

The lift doors opened to the top floor landing – one apartment door on each side. Seokjin’s footsteps echoed in the stairwell as he approached number six, pressing the buzzer.

He heard Jungseob before he saw him, crying his little ten-week-old lungs out.

Namjoon opened the door in baggy sweatpants and a t-shirt in need of a wash. He had a white rag thrown across his left shoulder, with Jungseob propped against it. Namjoon was bouncing Jungseob and keeping the door open with his foot. “Come in, come in! Gas, you know – he needs to let it out.”

Seokjin opted to say nothing as he followed Namjoon in, the sounds of Jungseob’s cries grating. He tuned the baby out as much as he could.

The top floor apartment was probably beautiful under normal circumstances: the short hallway opened to a sizeable living room with large windows that offered an expansive view into the neighbourhood and over other people’s houses. Everything was white – the marble floor, the high walls, and there were carefully chosen pieces of art here and there: an abstract painting on the wall, a small animal-shaped statuette on a plinth.

Just wait until your son learns how to pull things down, Seokjin thought when he looked back at the cat-dog statuette in the hallway.

It didn’t surprise him that Namjoon’s apartment had a museum feel to it: Namjoon had started out buying small pieces from emerging artists after graduating. He’d turned it into a profit quickly and started receiving requests from collectors to help them buy art that was due to double, triple in value over the coming years. Namjoon had opened his own gallery at the age of twenty-six to great renown, and these days artists were eager for Namjoon to choose to work with them. Who’d have thought, huh?

In its current state, however, Namjoon’s place was untidy. The glass dining table looked like a storage shelf at military barracks, piled with supplies: wet wipes, tissues, creams, nappies, baby socks, empty milk bottles. A full laundry basket stood in the middle of the room, with dirty rags and onesies on top – there for Namjoon to throw items in as needed, already overflowing.

Over the sound of Jungseob’s cries, Seokjin said, “This place is nice.”

“Hmm? Oh yeah, thanks. Take a seat! Do you want pineapple juice?”

Seokjin took a seat on the cream-coloured couch. A playmat was on the floor with an assortment of toys around it, and an arc curved over the mat with animal-shaped rattles attached. That statuette was definitely coming down…

From the kitchen, he heard a relieved, “There’s the burp! Well done, Jungseob-ah! Does your tummy feel better? I bet it feels better.” Kissing noises followed, even as Jungseob still wailed.

Seokjin looked around, one leg over the other, hands resting pristinely on his knees. What was he doing here?

“How’s the hangover? You cured?” Namjoon asked as he returned, handing him a glass of juice, Jungseob still expertly propped up against his shoulder. Namjoon sat down on the armchair and dipped Jungseob into his lap carefully, one large hand supporting the back of the head, before wiping at the infant’s mouth with the rag – Jungseob’s cries quieted into dissatisfied grunts.

“Some people talk about two-day hangovers, but my metabolism is too fast for that,” he said, sipping the juice but eyeing the deft way Namjoon was fixing up the baby. “You look like you’ve been doing that forever.”

“In this job, you learn or you perish,” Namjoon said, leaving Jungseob resting on his thighs and rubbing at his belly. Jungseob wriggled but stayed where he was. “He did not sleep well last night, and now he’s mad at me about it. You’re being a bit of a nightmare today, huh?”

Jungseob said nothing. He no longer looked quite freshly squeezed, but there was not much sign of intelligent life there yet, to be honest. Seokjin wondered about the egg donor and the surrogate but did not ask. He wondered if Namjoon was one of those ‘I didn’t know the meaning of love until I held him’ parents but again did not ask.

Namjoon leaned backwards and said, “Look, I know living with us is not what you want.”

Seokjin relaxed. Was Namjoon too going through the motions to please Yoongi and Hoseok? It went without saying that Seokjin moving into what was surely a challenging yet fulfilling time in Namjoon’s life was not something a distant friend could gate crash.

“However, here’s why I think you should,” Namjoon added, and Seokjin choked on the pineapple juice. “My paternity leave is ending soon, and I have to go back to work. I’m down to four days a week, but… he’s so little. And— No, no, I’m not asking you to babysit him, I’ve hired this sweet ahjumma as a nanny, she came with great references.”

“Thank god,” Seokjin breathed, wiping at his mouth.

A look of anguish coloured Namjoon’s face. “Yeah, but I’m… trusting this complete stranger with my son, and… and to be honest I’m freaking out. The other night I found myself looking into what spy cams are most discreet, like I spent two hours researching how to spy on this woman. What if she’s a psychopath? What if she shakes him? He’s so little, and when I think anything might happen to him, I start panicking, like—”

“Namjoon-ah, breathe,” he cut in sharply, and Namjoon visibly snapped out of whatever dark place he had been leading himself down on.

“Right. Sorry,” Namjoon exhaled, bouncing his legs to keep Jungseob happy. Namjoon bit on his bottom lip. “But then, you know, Yoongi said you could live here.”

“…Yeah.”

Namjoon kept his eyes on Jungseob. “You work from home, right? So… so I was thinking you could just make sure the nanny is getting on with Jungseob okay. Just for the first few weeks, as you’re waiting for your new place to be ready and I’m making sure she’s up to the job. I have a guest bedroom – my old office, it has a work desk and everything, and the bed is new. I just… It all falls into place, no?”

“So you want me to babysit the babysitter?”

“Just keep an eye on her. I just…” Namjoon exhaled, brushing through his unkempt hair. “I’m all he has. You know?”

Seokjin knew.

Now he understood why Namjoon hadn’t laughed Yoongi out of the park: Namjoon too had something to gain from this arrangement.

Maybe the two of them had been almost close at some point over a decade ago, and there was an ease that was between them even now. Living together, however, was pushing it.

Before Seokjin could respond, Namjoon assured him Jungseob was waking up only thrice a night to be fed and fell back asleep quickly. The urgent and pleading tone in Namjoon’s voice was unusual – Seokjin stilled. Namjoon really wanted this.

Seokjin would be doing him a favour. At Hoseok’s, he was the one begging for a favour.

A month or so here? Helping Namjoon out by checking in on the nanny a few times – who would, of course, be on her best behaviour when Seokjin was around to observe her?

He squeezed his knees, orientating himself. “Show me the guest room?”

Namjoon’s eyes widened and a relieved smile appeared on his lips.

Maybe it was the weeks on Hoseok’s sofa and the hassle of relocating, but on his first night at Namjoon’s apartment, Seokjin slept like a baby – dead to the world.

“All my stuff is in a storage facility in Incheon,” he’d explained when he had arrived with his two suitcases. He missed his cutting board, which he had crafted at a woodwork workshop in Adelaide. He missed his nice TV, which he had sold before leaving. He missed his couch and playing video games in his own home after a day of coding.

“We’re so happy you’re here,” Namjoon said and seemed to mean it. The ‘we’ was not lost on Seokjin either.

Namjoon gave him the grand tour: the kitchen, the living room, Namjoon’s (and Jungseob’s) room, the small bedroom next to it where Jungseob would eventually sleep on his own but which for now had a changing table and an odour-locked nappy bin, with boxes and boxes of toys and clothes that Jungseob was still too young for. Finally, Namjoon showed him the former office back near the main door that Seokjin would now stay in – a wide double bed, a wardrobe and desk there. Namjoon also showed him where the extra toilet paper was and how the induction stovetop worked, and Seokjin tried to remember everything so that he could be a good house guest.

“I appreciate this,” Seokjin said roughly a dozen times, and Namjoon insisted that he shouldn’t mention it.

They had a beer each to welcome him – they had known each other for how many years? And hadn’t Namjoon been his too-accomplished-for-his-own-good dongsaeng that entire time? Seokjin could be himself and speak his mind around Namjoon most of the time, even if tension was there now – a foreignness.

That did not stop him from clocking out the second his head hit the pillow.

He woke up under the thick goose-feather duvet. He took out the earplugs, unsure if they had done anything but still satisfied that he had slept through the night. He stretched, letting out a pleased groan – yes, this had been a good decision. Jungseob hadn’t kept him up at all.

When he strolled out of his room in rumbled pyjamas, he spotted Namjoon sitting at the glass dining table in the living room. “Good mo—”

He stopped.

Namjoon was asleep, his arms on the table and his head resting on top of them, snoring evenly and surrounded by baby paraphernalia, with two milk bottles on the table in front of him, one empty and one half-empty.

He approached gingerly, mostly amused.

Seokjin picked up a notebook that was next to Namjoon’s head. It was a log of the times Jungseob had been fed, how many millilitres of formula he had drunk, and what Jungseob’s weight each morning was. While Seokjin had been sleeping, Namjoon had been up four times to feed Jungseob. Dear god…

He put the notepad down, closed the cover, noting the 6:15am scribble for that morning. It was now half past seven.

“Namjoon-ah,” he said, hand gently landing on his shoulder.

Namjoon woke up with a start, knocking one of the baby bottles onto the floor – giving himself a fright from the noise. “Hu, wha— Shit, what time is it? Is Jungseob awake?”

Seokjin picked up the bottle. It had been the half-empty one, without the lid properly on. He plucked some tissues from Namjoon’s Baby Supplies Store on the table and bent down to clean up the mess.

Namjoon looked embarrassed. “Sorry, it was an unusually rough night – did we bother you?”

“I slept through it all, don’t worry. How strong should I make the coffee?”

Namjoon headed to check up on Jungseob, and Seokjin made them very strong coffee. Namjoon joined him in the kitchen a few minutes later, looking a little freshened up but no less alive.

“You really heard nothing?” Namjoon asked, clicking on the baby monitor app on his phone: on the screen was a good quality live feed from Jungseob’s crib. Seokjin shook his head, pouring out their drinks. “Well, that’s good. I half-expected you to be heading to a hotel this morning.”

Namjoon was two years younger than him – he’d be, what? Thirty-two now? Namjoon’s brown hair looked overgrown and in need of a touch up at the roots. Even so, he had grown up well – handsome, easily. Settled into his skin, settled into this apartment building, his career, his new-born son. There was a heftiness to Namjoon, one that felt pleasant and solid, and it took more than one rough night with Jungseob to erase that.

Seokjin still didn’t know what he was doing there.

He handed Namjoon his coffee and sat down at the small kitchen table with him. “Have you slept at all?”

“Here and there. It is what it is.”

In another week, Namjoon would be heading to work after a night like this – with what sleep? You had to give it to him: only people who were mad volunteered for this.

“You can shower first,” Seokjin offered.

Namjoon blinked, then shook his head. “He’s almost waking up – I need to do our morning routine.”

“Go grab a shower now, it’s okay. I’ll keep my ears open.”

Something hardened in Namjoon’s expression. “I’ve got a handle on all of this. Thank you.”

Seokjin had never implied that Namjoon didn’t – Namjoon was just tired, but who wouldn’t be with the kind of schedule that the log had suggested?

An awkward silence landed between them. Seokjin thought of all those missed calls and messages, all the get-togethers Namjoon had missed. No wonder… No wonder.

Note to self: don’t help the idiot who fell asleep at the table in a t-shirt covered in formula stains. He’s going down a martyr.

“Sure,” he said, getting up. “Well, I’ll have a shower then? There’s a lot I need to get done today.”

Namjoon nodded, still getting coffee into himself – but when the baby monitor app on his phone lit up, showing a feed of a now awake Jungseob in his cot, Namjoon was up on his feet.

Seokjin returned from a nearby café to find the apartment unexpectedly spotless. It had been a bomb site that morning, but this was Namjoon’s kingdom, so who was Seokjin to criticise?

Namjoon emerged from the kitchen with Jungseob strapped to his chest in a baby carrier. Jungseob was awake, making snuffling sounds and kicking his chubby legs, and Namjoon held one large hand to the back of his head. Namjoon had gotten into proper clothes – shorthand for something more than sweats and t-shirts. Now he was in khaki trousers and a white dress-shirt, with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. It didn’t take much for Namjoon to look like he was heading for an arts magazine cover shoot.

Seokjin had only been there for a few days, but they were still uneasy with each other. Namjoon clearly wanted to be a good host and not bother him with Jungseob – at least that had been Seokjin’s first impression. Now he thought Namjoon wanted to keep him away from Jungseob, or at least for him to leave father and son to it. It was a bizarre dynamic Seokjin could not parse, and so he mostly tried to get on with work while browsing furniture websites for a dream couch for his new place.

At the same time, Seokjin felt shitty for not lifting a finger. Namjoon had only asked Seokjin to keep an eye on the baby once when he needed to go for a shower, and even then Namjoon had taken the quickest goddamn shower in the history of mankind. Seokjin had overheard Namjoon on the phone to Hoseok more than once, quizzing Hobi on the normal growth rate of baby toenails. Namjoon was not a laidback father. On top of it all, Namjoon was increasingly fretting about handing Jungseob over to the nanny.

“You look ready to hit the town,” he told Namjoon. Jungseob too was out of the usual simple jumpsuits: the baby had navy trousers and a yellow t-shirt on, and Namjoon had even combed his hair back. The living room had been tidied up well: the Baby Supply Store had been organised, and the toys around the playmat were in a neat line.

“Yeah listen, you’ve met my mother, right?” Namjoon asked, a sharp edge to his tone. “Turns out she’s in town and is dropping by in a few.”

“Unannounced?”

“Announced as of two hours ago – very much unexpected.”

“Does she—”

“Know you’re here, yes. She’s looking forward to seeing you.”

“Right,” he said. There went his plan to walk right back out. He looked at Namjoon and Jungseob all smartened up and said, “I’ll go change.”

He had met Namjoon’s mother at Yoongi’s graduation dinner a long time ago, but she was easy to remember: a formidable woman who had promptly told Seokjin that she was fine with gay people but worried about family lineage. “Maybe this country should let gay couples adopt, then,” he had suggested, and she had said, “Well let’s be realistic here, Seokjin-ah – that’s not happening under this government or the next.”

Had Namjoon rushed to have a baby on his own just to provide Kim Minjin with the grandchild she clearly expected to have?

Seokjin headed for a shower and, when he turned the water off, he overheard a woman’s voice echoing from the living room. He towelled his hair carefully, going through his toiletries bag balanced on the side of the sink. He really had to stop living out of a suitcase…

The bathroom was opposite the guest room, only a few steps taking him from one to the other, but he was intercepted on his way.

“Well, there he is – half-dressed, I see.”

Kim Minjin was seated at the tidied-up glass table with Jungseob in her arms, and her eyes were somewhere on Seokjin’s bare chest – then lower. Seokjin hastily tightened the towel around his waist, bowing in her general direction with, “Eomoni, hello.”

Namjoon emerged from the kitchen with two teacups, saw Seokjin in his half-naked state, paled, and didn’t have time to say anything before his mother continued, “Come have tea with us, Seokjin-ah.”

This was not a request.

Soon he was dressed and sipping on green tea from Jejudo, which Minjin had brought with her. She had retired there after Namjoon’s father passed away a few years earlier, citing a need for change. She now praised the idyllic atmosphere of the island although the tourists got on her nerves. They looked alike, her and Namjoon: same eyes, same cheekbones, same dimples. He wondered if Jungseob would match – he needed to see pictures of Namjoon as a baby to be sure.

Minjin was in her mid-sixties now but did not look much aged from whenever Seokjin had last seen her, a long, long time ago now.

“So Namjoon tells me you’re back for good?”

Straight to the point.

“Yes, eomoni.”

“And you still fix up computers? Is it lucrative?”

He was a software developer, but he did not correct her. “Yes, eomoni, it’s good work. My new apartment will be in Mapo-gu. It’s still being built.”

She nodded in approval, keeping Jungseob in her arms, with Jungseob mostly gazing around himself with a confused expression, letting out small noises. Namjoon was keeping an eye on Jungseob, but also eyed between Seokjin and his mother – a little restless but with an air of authority: this was his house and ultimately even his mother was a guest.

“And where’s that friend of yours – that banker?” Minjin asked.

“My boyfriend,” he corrected without hesitation, and she nodded that yes, yes, she knew. “We broke up, actually. He’s still in Sydney – he got married.”

Minjin stopped bouncing Jungseob. “What? To a woman?”

Seokjin held back a laugh. “No, eomoni, to a man.”

“Ah, right, you can do that over there. Well, I’m still sorry to hear it didn’t work out.”

She sounded like she meant it too, while Namjoon was giving Seokjin a look of surprise. Seokjin hadn’t told anyone that Jangkun had gotten married to the most annoyingly handsome Filipino orthodontist. They’d met a few months after the Rose Bay apartment had sold – love at first sight, apparently, at the Sunday flea market by the second-hand book stall. Funny. Funny because Jangkun had always said he had no interest in getting married, and neither did Seokjin. Funny, then, how much Jangkun’s change of heart had stung – and Seokjin did not even want to marry Jangkun. He wasn’t in love with him anymore, so why had he been so hurt over it?

Minjin turned to her son. “Remember to tell your neighbours that Seokjin is only a guest, won’t you?”

“Eomma,” Namjoon said in a scolding tone, but Seokjin laughed and took a sip of his tea.

“What? My poor grandson is motherless, and now you’re cohabiting with a handsome man. Aish, don’t look at me like that, Namjoon-ah, not everyone is as modern as you and your artist friends. I haven’t offended you, have I, Seokjin-ah?”

“Not at all,” he assured, enjoying seeing Namjoon squirm.

“Good – and you, Jungseobie? You are, aren’t you, my poor motherless sweetheart?” she asked and kissed him on the head. Jungseob did not respond, just waved his fists about and gurgled. Namjoon sighed, and his mother added, “Fine, fine, I will stop calling him that – although he is, you know: motherless.”

Seokjin finally excused himself, citing a client call, and Namjoon looked vaguely pleading for him not to leave him in the manicured hands of his mother. Seokjin liked Kim Minjin – she was a little abrupt, but this was much better than false niceties only to be talked about behind your back. You knew where you stood with her, and Namjoon, with his poor motherless Jungseob, knew it too.

Minjin left an hour later as she had the opera to get to. Seokjin said a polite goodbye and returned to work, only looking up from his screen when Namjoon knocked on his door a while later.

Namjoon waved his phone in the air. “I’m ordering dinner – you want something?”

He rarely said no to food.

The jjigae arrived quickly, and the two of them ate at the dining table while Jungseob was having a nap in the baby bouncer by the TV.

“I’m sorry for my mother’s casual homophobia,” Namjoon said plainly, but Seokjin didn’t think it was that precisely. Minjin liked him, perhaps because he was handsome. Besides, had Namjoon ever met Seokjin’s parents? But ah, of course Namjoon had not.

“She’s really not that bad – just a bit pushy and direct,” he said, pushing the sundubu around the bowl, waiting for the broth to cool. He hesitated. “Did she take it hard when you decided to have Jungseob on your own?”

Namjoon didn’t look up from his food. “Well, you could say she wasn’t at her most supportive. Once she saw him, though, she stopped calling me an idiot at least. Now she comes up from Jeju on a whim every few weeks to see Jungseob – not me, that’s for sure.”

Seokjin slurped the stew and said nothing, letting the silence speak for them. It made sense Namjoon was so highly strung when no one seemed to think he could pull off raising a baby on his own – that Namjoon was overly determined to prove them wrong but was also falling apart at the seams while at it.

“So, Jangkun’s married?” Namjoon eventually said, and Seokjin nodded. Namjoon poked at a piece of onion. “Is that why you moved back? Because it got… too painful?”

“Not at all,” he said with a shake of his head. “No, it wasn’t that. I wish him well.”

Namjoon looked disbelieving. “You do?”

“Of course I do.”

“So you’re over him – what, just like that? After ten years together?” Namjoon asked, and Seokjin thought back to the coastal path leading to Nielsen Park – his heart pulsating with the disbelief of ‘this cannot be all that my life is’.

“Yes and no,” he said after some thought, surprised by how curiously Namjoon was looking at him.

Namjoon hadn’t asked about Jangkun, just like Seokjin hadn’t asked why Namjoon hadn’t married some girl to start a family with.

“We’d gotten used to each other, not much romance or passion left. But I guess I thought that’d be enough, anyway? Passion fades, turns into companionship, that whole tale. I still saw us growing old together, even if I was restless – and when it fell apart, I was more surprised than he was. So, I guess I… I’m not quite over the life I thought I’d have with him, or over all the plans that I’d made for us. But it’s… it’s the safety of those plans that I miss, in contrast to a lot of uncertainty now, and… we always think freedom is such a great thing to have, but too much freedom can be upsetting too.”

He paused, startled by his own words. It was the closest he’d ever gotten to articulating the heavy weight that pressed against his chest every day. “So anyway, what I mean is that I miss the… the safety that I used to feel with him and not… him. Does that make sense?”

Namjoon was still in the nice white shirt, with the sleeves rolled up and the top two buttons undone. The watch on his wrist looked expensive too, and his eyes were pensive. “It makes a lot of sense, hyung,” he said, and Seokjin felt a little less like he was party crashing on someone else’s life.

Seokjin straightened up. “Good.” He took a spoonful of the stew, swallowed it down. “So, I was thinking – we should invite Yoongi and Hoseok around and let your neighbours think we’re in a big homo love quadrangle situation, which will obscure Jungseob’s paternity in the process. Now hear me out, it’s a five-step plan.”

Namjoon laughed, teeth white and lips a beautiful red – kicking Seokjin’s feet under the table. “Quit it and eat your food.”

Seokjin huffed.

Namjoon had nothing to worry about: he was a great dad.

Two days later Seokjin had a panic attack in the hilly mountain paths of Bugaksan near Namjoon’s house.

He, at least, self-diagnosed this as a panic attack: he could not breathe, his vision blurred, his chest felt tight, he was dizzy, and he bent down right in the middle of the path, hugging his knees to his chest.

On a weekday morning, there was no one else around.

Namjoon’s neighbourhood was tranquil compared to Hoseok’s – polished, well-off, and far away from everything. Had Seokjin moved to another Rose Bay? Swap the shorelines for the hills, the tanned Australians for the tan-avoiding Koreans, and you weren’t far off.

He stayed still, focusing on his breaths as all of it came crashing on him: he had no home. He had no country. He had no partner, he had no plan, he had no map, he had no direction.

What did he have? His toes. His feet. His heels. His ankles, his shins. His knees, his thighs. The air in his lungs. He had the air in his lungs.

He opened his eyes and stood up, feeling unsteady. He had been covered in warm sweat against the late winter cold, but now that sweat had run cold. His breath rose in the air, and pale sunlight filtered through the leafless trees. Birdsong. The rustle of leaves.

He’d first ever felt this shortness of breath and panic on his first night in his post-breakup bachelor pad in Sydney. No one had helped him move and no one was there to help him unpack. In movies people always had friends and family carrying boxes and furniture, or they were coming around to paint walls or bring lasagne.

No one had helped Seokjin, and no one would. What had happened to all those friends of his? But shit, those had been nothing except guys they’d liked partying with. It wasn’t real friendship but shallow acquaintance, washing away like a sandcastle on a beach – and he blamed himself for that, because so many people had built themselves families amidst the queer communities of the city, yet he hadn’t managed to do so.

No one even knew his new address. It wasn’t freeing but terrifying, and suddenly breathing had been difficult. He had no support network around him whatsoever. What if he got cancer? Who would help him through chemo? Were these thoughts completely insane, or was this a normal reaction to realising you were completely alone in the world?

One moment he had been unpacking books in his bedroom, the next he had been hyperventilating on the floor. These days he knew how to return to himself – how to keep these thoughts at bay. In some ways he was surprised it had taken him this long to have an episode in Seoul.

He started walking back on unsteady feet, hoping that colour was returning to his skin. Air reached his lungs again, and the sun blinded him.

He was still here – still here. He might not be okay today, but that did not mean he would never be. He had to be kind to himself: this, coming back after a decade in Australia? This was goddamn hard. He’d thought he’d never come back, that he had successfully set up a life in exile abroad. He’d had Jangkun and they’d had their friends, a busy social life, lots of plans – they had integrated, assimilated, and Seokjin would never go back. He would retire to the Gold Coast or maybe a more off-beat Tasmania, spend his mornings watching the sun rising from the ocean.

After the breakup, he’d stayed in Sydney for another year out of habit. Where else would he go? He wasn’t visiting this city – he lived here.

So he’d stayed, watching the seasons pass him by, settling into a new life without Jangkun and living alone for the first time in his life, too. It felt like something he should have done earlier to learn and grow from it, to discover himself perhaps – now it just felt like resignation.

One evening he had been watching a kdrama set in the nineties, seeing his own childhood relived through the Gen Z actors who probably had no idea what a cassette player even was, and a historical consultant had been brought on set to explain outdated technology to them. As he’d watched the actors run around in school, worrying about their exams and crushes but laughing it off with friends, he had completely unexpectedly burst into tears and had not stopped crying for a whole hour. What was he doing in Sydney all alone, wading in still water? Why not just go home? What was stopping him, apart from stubborn pride?

He wasn’t good at making life decisions, but he’d made one that night: he had nothing in Sydney and he was deeply unhappy. He wanted to move back to Korea where he could at least guilt-trip someone to visit him in hospital if he ever needed chemo.

Fast-forward six months, however, and Seoul did not feel like home either. That same sense of not-belonging, of being rootless and meaningless, had followed him all the way to the hills bordering the northern edges of the city. What was he doing here? Would he ever belong to a place ever again?

He swallowed it down, following the winding streets back to Namjoon’s place, feeling worn out and lost. Well, that explained his freakout (he had already downgraded it from a panic attack – those were something Hoseok could diagnose).

“Did you find the route okay?” Namjoon called out from the bedroom when he returned, but Seokjin felt so threadbare that he did not want to chitchat. He still called back an affirmative, walking to the kitchen to get a glass of water.

If a man has a meltdown in a forest but no one hears it, did the man really have a meltdown?

When he finished downing the glass of water, Namjoon appeared in the open archway of the kitchen.

“Yeah? You were gone really long,” Namjoon noted, concern in his brown eyes and colour-coordinating baby socks in his hands. “If you tell me where you got lost, I can tell you a better route. I know the paths really well.”

“I’m just out of shape – didn’t expect the paths to be so steep.”

“Alright,” Namjoon said but he sounded like he didn’t believe him. “Make it to the top next time, huh?”

Maybe Namjoon would come see him in chemo if Jungseob was sleeping well that day.

“Sure,” he said.

He was counting days for his apartment to be done. That was when he could finally start over.

But not here. Not yet.

“Sure,” he repeated.

On Namjoon’s last day of paternity leave, Seokjin stayed out of the way. Namjoon kept fretting and sighing, organising the nappies, creams, extra clothes, although the nanny had visited the day before to see how everything was set up.

At the end of it all, Namjoon sat in the large armchair where he often fed Jungseob – this time just quietly watching him sleep in his arms when Seokjin went to get himself a beer. It seemed like an intimate moment that he did not want to intrude on, but Namjoon spotted him and said, “Can I get one of those?”

Namjoon had used to drink with the frequency of any man in his early twenties – now he’d had only one beer on the night Seokjin got there. Namjoon didn’t need to say anything for Seokjin to realise this was another result of being the sole parent.

Namjoon took the beer bottle, gaze still on Jungseob. Then he sighed and took a long sip.

Seokjin sat down on the adjacent couch. The TV was showing cartoons on mute, with animated animals hopping around. He wondered what to say – that Jungseob was three months old and would not really understand that Namjoon was missing? But that perhaps wasn’t true – surely Jungseob knew Namjoon’s scent by now, with something primal signalling who his caregiver was? Or should he say that the ahjumma had seemed very competent when visiting, even if she had looked long and hard at the rainbow t-shirt Seokjin had happened to have on?

Shit, it must cost a lot: an egg donor, a surrogate, a nearly full-time nanny’s salary. Maybe that was why Namjoon hadn’t bothered with a wife: he didn’t need the second income.

Seokjin was still choosing what Words of Comfort to offer when Namjoon said, “It was hard to bond with him.”

Seokjin stilled, taking in the way Namjoon was gazing down at Jungseob thoughtfully.

“I met the surrogate twice every month, but that wasn’t the same as… I don’t know. Sleeping in the same bed as the person having your child, I guess. Feeling the kicks and all of that, and letting the baby listen to your voice. I just… I don’t think Jungseob took to me for a while. But who can blame him? He didn’t know who I was.”

“To be fair, he didn’t know who anyone was,” he pointed out.

Namjoon huffed. “Yeah, but… it was hard. That first month was so hard… Now he smiles at me. Recognises me. I don’t want to leave him with a nanny. What if he forgets who I am?”

Seokjin shook his head. “He hates people who aren’t you. When Hoseok visited the other day and insisted on holding him, what happened?”

Namjoon laughed. “That was a bad tantrum – wasn’t it, Seob-ah? You’ve got a lot of air in your lungs, huh – scared your Uncle Hoseok, didn’t you?”

Jungseob twitched in his sleep, and Namjoon looked at him with utter adoration.

“He knows who you are,” Seokjin said quietly. “Even if you’re away during business hours. And I’ve promised to rat out that nanny, haven’t I? If she can’t handle him, or if she isn’t gentle with him, I’m gonna call you.”

Namjoon lifted his gaze, their eyes meeting. “Thanks, hyung.”

Seokjin nodded – that was that settled. After hesitating, he added, “Do you know what she looks like?”

“Who?”

“The egg donor. Do you…?”

“Ah. Her. Well, the file had her weight, height, IQ, things like that. I know how old she is, and level of education.” Namjoon looked at Jungseob carefully. “I sometimes wonder, though, if one day I’ll see a woman who looks exactly like him walking down the street. If I’ll just know, and— and I wonder if she’d want to know at all? But she’s not his mother. She’s a…”

“A helpful stranger?”

“Exactly,” Namjoon agreed, leaning back in the chair and taking a further sip of the beer. “I mostly worry about what Jungseob will say when he’s older – when kids at school ask about his mother.”

Seokjin shrugged, waving it off. “He’ll say his appa is so great that he doesn’t need a mother.”

Namjoon gave him a cautious smile, but worry was laced in it.

Jungseob let out a weak cry, waking up and cranky about it. That was his ‘I’m hungry’ cry. Seokjin motioned Namjoon to stay still and went to heat up water in the microwave, mixing it with cold water until the temperature felt right. How many scoops of formula was it again? He studied the pack and followed the instructions.

He heard Namjoon answer the phone as the microwave churned, the sound of it mixing with Jungseob’s louder and more demanding cries. Namjoon was in the middle of a work call, phone squashed between shoulder and ear when Seokjin handed him the bottle. Despite Namjoon being on paternity leave the gallery had called him nearly every day.

“Whatever sale you finalise tonight, I can put through tomorrow,” Namjoon was saying, aptly pushing the teat past Jungseob’s lips while Seokjin sat back down to finish his beer. “She confirmed? Ah, that’s great – make sure you show her the Oh Siwan piece. Explain about the use of negative space, and how the paint has been used for texture. … No, she should buy it, Jungkook-ah. Tell her I handpicked the piece for her – no, tell her that I’ve been reserving it for her.”

Namjoon was reaching for a rag – why did babies equal to dozens and dozens of rags at all times? – and Seokjin once again took pity and handed him one from the coffee table, taking the milk bottle from him. Namjoon mouthed a thank you and dabbed spittle away from Jungseob’s chin.

“But it’s why she works with us,” Namjoon objected, something sharp in his tone. “I don’t know why she’d call asking for European art when she knows we deal Korean art. Look, I’ve worked with her for five years, she’s a great collector, and— Jungkook-ah, you can sell her the painting because I know you can! We talked this over, remember?”

The phone was slipping from Namjoon’s shoulder, but he didn’t have enough hands, and Jungseob was gearing up to start wailing.

Seokjin put his beer away, stood up, and extended his arms in an offer to take Jungseob. Namjoon looked at him in surprise, looked at Jungseob, then at Seokjin again, all the while speaking into the phone with, “No, I can’t come in tonight, I told you it’s my last full day with Jungseob, and— Hang on.”

Seokjin picked Jungseob up from Namjoon’s arms.

‘You got him?’ Namjoon mouthed, hands now free to clutch his phone, and Seokjin nodded as Namjoon headed to his bedroom with, “Okay, look, I know you’re freaking out because it’s a two-billion won painting, but you can’t think of it like that—”

The door closed with Namjoon glancing their way once more. Crisis averted!

Seokjin grabbed the milk bottle and pushed the teat right into the O shaped cry. He’d watched Namjoon do this a thousand times by now.

Jungseob quieted while Seokjin shook his head in disapproval – Namjoon’s last full day off and they were harassing him. “They never let your appa rest, do they?”

Then he froze and stood very still, because he had not held Jungseob before. Namjoon had never asked or offered, and Seokjin certainly had not volunteered. It seemed like too much responsibility.

He stood in the middle of the living room, panicking.

Jungseob was heavy and he was warm – like a water bottle you could cuddle up against at night, if you liked a water bottle that wriggled and farted often. Jungseob was eating hungrily, and Seokjin worried he would choke on the milk. He tried to bounce Jungseob, the way he’d seen Namjoon do, taking in the downy black hair and the chubby cheeks.

The bottle finished, and he gently plucked it from Jungseob’s mouth. He looked back to the bedroom – what did he do now? The dining table was full of baby paraphernalia. A cloth! Right, after eating you had to burp him. Shit, he’d learned a lot just by watching Namjoon, huh?

He draped a cloth over his shoulder and supported Jungseob to rest against his front and shoulder, bouncing him softly, tapping at his back. He was holding a baby! He was doing the thing! He was a natural, of course he was, just rename him the Baby Whisperer—

Jungseob barfed all of his shoulder, the smell of sickly-sweet formula permeating all of his senses. He gagged involuntarily, feeling the warm substance wetting his shirt. Jungseob barfed some more.

“Oh god, you’re vile,” he managed, fighting back his own reflexes to gag again.

Namjoon emerged from the bedroom, phone clutched in his hand. “Hey, thanks for— Oh. Oh, did he throw up on you? Yeah, I recognise that look, hang—”

“Please, please take him, it’s rolling down my back, it’s— It’s rolling down my—!”

Namjoon took Jungseob from him, and he instantly pulled his t-shirt over his head, bundling it up and keeping it at arm’s length as he looked over his shoulder to see if his skin was glistening with baby vomit.

“It’s not that bad,” Namjoon assured.

“Not bad?! The last time someone threw up on me was at a Mardi Gras afterparty, and I told myself never again,” he said, reaching for wet wipes on the table and haphazardly trying to wipe his shoulder blade and upper back. He was quite bendy but not enough.

Namjoon put Jungseob into the baby bouncer on the floor with, “Come on, hyung. It’s just some baby spew.”

“It looked like cottage cheese,” he whined, dropping the shirt into the laundry basket that was always in the middle of the room – now he knew why.

Jungseob let out a cry, and Seokjin pointed a finger in his direction. “Don’t make this about you, Jungseob-ah! You’re on my shit list!”

“That’s not a nice thing to say,” Namjoon said but he was holding back a laugh. “Stay still.”

Namjoon grabbed wet wipes and motioned for him to turn around, and Seokjin did. The cool and wet sensation of the wipes followed, with Namjoon’s large hands carefully tracing across his upper back and down his right side.

Seokjin breathed in – and out. In – and out. He shuddered, but it was a good shudder.

Namjoon had slightly calloused but warm fingertips. The touch was firm but gentle. Seokjin’s chest felt tight – when was the last time someone had touched him?

“Did you notice?” Namjoon asked, voice a low rumble behind him.

“Huh?”

“He didn’t cry when you held him.”

Oh. No, he hadn’t noticed.

He ignored the inexplicably warm sensation that Jungseob’s potential approval gave him, reminding himself that this had come at the cost of barf.

Namjoon’s palm smoothed over his upper back slowly, and Seokjin felt it all the way to the dip of his spine.

The hands lifted off him. “I see no cottage cheese on you.”

“And the smell?”

“The wonderful aroma of disinfectants,” Namjoon assured, and Seokjin turned around, finding Namjoon closer to him than he’d expected. Namjoon’s gaze dropped to his chest and stomach, and Seokjin could have sworn he had seen that slightly out-of-focus look on other men drinking him in before. In the next second, the look was gone, and Namjoon had stepped back – and Namjoon was just Namjoon again.

“Sorry, I should’ve warned you of the risks of holding Jungseob,” Namjoon said.

Seokjin let the moment slide over them quickly, crossing his arms. “I don’t think he wants to be my friend.”

“Oh, he does. You’re his favourite uncle – isn’t he, Jungseob-ah?”

Jungseob, as ever, said nothing.

Seokjin glared at father and son both. “I know when a man is trying to sweettalk me, but I am nowhere near as easy as I used to be.”

Why had he said that? God, so dumb…

Namjoon laughed before his smile tightened. Seokjin too returned to himself, taking in a deep breath, feeling oddly naked in his shirtless state in front of Namjoon.

“I expect an apology to be his first words,” he deadpanned with a finger pointed at the baby before he headed to his room.

The sensation of Namjoon’s hands on him lingered, however – times were that dire, huh?

It was time he got back on those dating apps.

“Blocked… Blocked… Blocked…”

“Aish, they can’t all be that bad,” Yoongi objected, reaching for the phone to browse Grindr on his behalf. To Yoongi’s credit, he did not bat an eye at the sheer amount of pecs/abs/butts/baby oil overload that the screen showed. “This guy’s half a kilometre away – so in the neighbourhood? Swing by his place for a blowjob before you go back to baby central?”

“You make it sounds like dropping off a food delivery.”

“More like making a deposit.”

Seokjin scoffed. “If you miss your bi-disaster days, just say so.”

Yoongi and his wife lived in Seongsu-dong with two cats: one each so that they wouldn’t have to fight over feline affection, but in practice this meant Yoongi was the Chosen One for two cats instead of one. The white cat was sleeping in the spot of afternoon sunshine on the floor, and the black one was rubbing himself against Seokjin’s legs – he gently guided the cat away.

“He likes to be stroked,” Yoongi said, still on Seokjin’s phone.

“Mmm, but I don’t want cat fur on me. What if Jungseob is allergic? You never know.”

“Namjoon’s paranoia is rubbing on you, huh? How has it been, anyway – co-habiting with Kim Senior and Kim Junior?”

“Fine.”

“Really?” Yoongi asked, sounding surprised. Seokjin was surprised too, but things had settled.

Namjoon had returned to work now. Jungseob had cried a lot on his first day with the nanny, Eunha, who had done her best while Seokjin had pretended to work (he had 100% been spying on her and had then worked until midnight to catch up on his projects). Eunha seemed like an apt and experienced professional – late fifties and practical but speaking to Jungseob softly like he was the best baby she had ever seen. When Jungseob slept, she tidied up the place and folded away baby onesies, and on one afternoon that week she had cleared away the Baby Supply Store from the living room into the chest of drawers in Jungseob’s room, saying a dining table was meant for dining, and then she had written out a very detailed list of where she had put everything, all with a smile on her face. Seokjin had dutifully reported that he did not think Namjoon had to install a hidden camera.

Namjoon going to work in the mornings had changed the atmosphere of the apartment too: Namjoon was out of the sweats and t-shirts, at least the cheap ones. Now Namjoon dressed in smart shirts and sleek trousers, throwing on a jacket or a long, knitted cardigan, then adding some cologne and brushing his hair off his face – finally throwing on a long loose necklace or some bulky rings, blending a hint of artsy bohemianism to the expensive, smart casual looks. Namjoon then either cycled to Insa-dong or he caught the bus; something about needing to do his bit for climate change, beyond of course Namjoon not knowing how to drive. And Namjoon, of course, stopped on his way out to kiss Jungseob goodbye anywhere between eight and ten times.

When Yoongi had invited him over, he’d said that Seokjin likely needed a break from Jungseob’s crying. Seokjin had, however, gotten used to the fuss that a small baby necessitated far more quickly than he’d anticipated.

“Namjoon’s been a good host – more welcoming than I thought, to be honest.”

“You thought he’d be unhospitable?”

“Well, no, but…” he said and made a vague gesture with his hand. He and Namjoon had never been close, not the way he and Yoongi were, or even how he and Hoseok were. There had always been a distance there, like they were holding back a little. Seokjin hadn’t pushed for a closer friendship because he’d sensed Namjoon’s reluctance all those years ago. The two of them had never called each other to catch up but had stuck to the group chat, exchanging casual but meaningless quips.

To Seokjin’s surprise, however, they were getting on astonishingly well. Lately they had taken to talking over an evening cup of tea after Jungseob had been put to bed, just sitting in the living room chatting and laughing. He knew all about Namjoon trying to convince an exciting new artist who went by the moniker V to work with him, while Namjoon knew all about the software issues of the company Seokjin was doing some work for. They talked about their families and movies and music and… It reminded him of Jangkun a little, of that comfortable and easy everyday chatter that had filled their evenings when things still had been good.

“I guess we’ve bonded a little,” he eventually concluded.

Yoongi did not look up from Seokjin’s phone. “That’s great, hyung. Hey, this guy’s cute – says he’s circumcised. Do you care either way? Shit, the number of guys liking your profile is nuts.”

Seokjin grabbed his phone back. “That’s why I can’t chat to everyone – we need quality over quantity.”

Yoongi picked up Soot from the floor: long-haired and black. “Well, what are you looking for then? A hook-up or a relationship?”

“LTR or NSA,” he said, humming to himself.

I want someone who will kiss me goodbye when they leave for work in the mornings, he did not say: it sounded so horribly naïve even to his own ears. He had to be more practical: meet someone he enjoyed spending time with, and yes have good sex too. He doubted he could expect anything more.

Yoongi had met Siyeon on a dating app. Apparently her profile had read: vacancy for one soulmate, apply within, whereas Yoongi’s profile had been cat pictures and nothing else. Of course they had matched.

Seokjin looked around their living room, at Yoongi’s grand piano and Siyeon’s full bookcases. They’d made a good life for themselves. He had tried to have exactly this with Jangkun and failed because he had been unsatisfied. What else had he wanted?

“About Namjoon,” he said, and Yoongi looked up from Soot with an enquiring expression. “Why didn’t he just get married if he wanted a family? Do you know?”

Yoongi gave him a blank look – oh, Yoongi knew.

Yoongi focused on Soot again. “He said it’d take too long: meeting someone, then dating, then making it official – years before they’d get to the baby business.”

“That’s obviously an excuse. Plenty of single women would rush to marry a successful, handsome art dealer, especially if babies were in the immediate pipeline.”

“Maybe he doesn’t want a partner,” Yoongi said at length, but it sounded like he didn’t believe his own words. “That’s okay too, right? To be self-partnered but want a child?”

“I mean sure,” he said, now feeling like a dick. Namjoon was just so eligible. It was hard to believe he had been struggling to find the woman of his dreams. “Did he say that’s what he wants – to be on his own?”

Yoongi was quiet for a good while. “You should ask him.”

He eyed Yoongi suspiciously. “I can’t just ask him – it’s rude.”

He thought of Kim Minjin and her ‘poor motherless Jungseob’ speeches.

“I don’t know, I think he’d want to tell you about it,” Yoongi said, and Seokjin struggled understanding what that meant.

Yoongi’s wife Siyeon came home then, giving Seokjin a friendly welcome. Yoongi asked if he would stay for dinner, but he started getting ready to go: he felt like he was intruding here, in their comfortable and tastefully decorated home – intruding on them and their SNS-worthy cats. Better head back to Namjoon’s place where Namjoon did not make him feel like he was intruding on anything.

He waited for the taxi outside Yoongi’s building, sorting through the damage that Yoongi had done on Grindr. Yoongi had, without any prompting, messaged a dozen guys ‘what’s up?’ One of them replied just then: this boy’s what’s up. On the screen was a picture of a sizeable cock in the man’s palm.

Seokjin stilled. That… that looked good.

Want tugged at him.

you need help with that?

you know I do

He sucked in a breath. can’t host

I can host – you willing to bttm?

yeah but no barebacking

deal

When the taxi arrived, he gave the driver an address in Yeouido. In the absence of love, this at least would save him from being bored.

Another buzz against his palm: had the guy sent an ass pic too?

He tapped at his phone and found a picture from Namjoon: it was of Jungseob sleeping in his cot, with the small alpaca plushie that Seokjin had bought for him. He loves it, Namjoon had written.

Of course he does, he sent back, then clicked back to the Yeouido man who had responded to Seokjin’s on my way with good boy. Ah fuck… Seokjin shifted, his cock hardening.

Another buzz: Could you pick up formula on your way back? nbd if you can’t

The nanny had said that morning that Namjoon was low on formula, just as Namjoon had been hurrying out for an early meeting, tie hanging askew. Namjoon had said he would definitely buy some – he wouldn’t forget!

you forgot?

yeah… today was chaos. But really nbd if you can’t

Seokjin sighed, taking in the wide streets of Gangnam they were driving through. Who was the man waiting for him in Yeouido? His soulmate, maybe, if people like him got to have one?

Jungseob had the most pitiful cry when he was hungry.

“Ahjussi,” he said, leaning forward. “Sorry, can we go to Buam-dong instead? And stop at a supermarket on the way?”

“No problem,” the man said and began changing lanes.

Seokjin typed, hey something came up – rain check?

seriously??? the guy replied. Two seconds later Seokjin was blocked.

Maybe that had been his soulmate – for five or ten minutes. Maybe.

RKive was placed between a trendy café and an art supply store in Insa-dong. The neighbourhood had a handful of art galleries, some touristy, and some exclusive and expensive. Namjoon did not like his gallery being confused with the touristy ones, although sometimes a lost tourist would end up spending two million won on a painting – so it wasn’t as bad as it could be, Namjoon explained.

Seokjin had been there on his visits to Seoul. He distinctly remembered coming by once with Jangkun, who had looked around the expansive front room of the gallery, neat and tidy with carefully chosen art on display. “Namjoon owns this place? Who’d have thought he had this in him?”

On some afternoons RKive closed its doors to the public, reserved for VIP art collectors who had come into town for the sole purpose of Artistic Director Kim Namjoon showing them items to add to their collections. An artist getting their work into RKive signalled that they were making it in the arts scene – Namjoon had encyclopaedic knowledge of art, past and present, and an eye for talent.

That early and chilly spring afternoon, the gallery too was closed for a private function, but the VIP in question was Jungseob, now a hundred days old. Yoongi and Siyeon had picked Seokjin up from Buam-dong, while Namjoon had left with his son some hours earlier.

All of Namjoon’s friends and family were gathering for the baek-il, and Seokjin too held a gift bag in his grip – a cute, white onesie with colourful dots, as if Jungseob didn’t have enough clothes as it was.

Inside the gallery, they were quickly approached by a black-haired man with knuckle tattoos and a lip piercing, wearing an oversized bomber jacket. The man was certainly not overdressed.

“Hyung,” the man said to Yoongi, beaming brightly. “It’s good to see you!”

“Is there wine at this thing?” Yoongi asked, eyeing the buffet table while Siyeon nudged at him to behave. Namjoon had ordered the sweets from a nearby rice cake shop, while using the same catering company he used for his exhibition openings for the rest. Some twenty or so guests were now there, helping themselves to the nibbles and drinks.

“There’s wine,” the man confirmed before looking at Seokjin curiously. “And you must be Seokjin-ssi?”

The man introduced himself as Jungkook, the assistant sales director of RKive. Seokjin had heard Namjoon on the phone to him more than once. “A good kid,” Namjoon had told him. “Puts his heart and soul into the gallery.”

“I’ve heard a lot about you,” Jungkook said with a smile. Seokjin could not picture Namjoon talking about him to other people.

“They’re all lies,” he said – haha, how original, but he didn’t know what else to say.

Namjoon was standing at the back of the gallery with some stylishly dressed friends of his. Seokjin also spotted Kim Minjin, flown in from Jeju to celebrate her grandson who was currently in her arms. Jungseob was dolled up in a pearl and pink baby hanbok and looked confused about it.

He, Yoongi and Siyeon left their gift bags on the assigned table. Yoongi next secured them glasses of wine, while Jungkook asked if they would like to be shown some of the art?

The gallery had paintings and modestly sized statues on display, as well as a light installation piece attached to the ceiling. Jungkook showed them paintings by a retired librarian from Mokpo, who had started painting on her sixtieth birthday – her latest painting had sold for nine figures. “This is a portrait of her late husband,” Jungkook explained of the large canvas, covered in bold colours and broad brushstrokes, the figure abstract but discernible.

“He looks young,” Seokjin noted, observing a chiselled chin and a firm gaze from the shades and contrasts in front of him.

Jungkook nodded. “He passed away young, forty years ago. That is why you can trace the subject’s main features but, if you look closely, you can’t really see his face; the abstraction reflects how she has lost that to time, while the use of primary colours evokes the surreal yet violent sense of the loss. This one here is how she imagined her husband would look in his sixties if he had gotten to live that long.”

The paired portrait had even brighter and bolder colours, tracing an old man – features sharper and clearer. That man had never existed, but he had been painted precisely and vividly, every wrinkle of skin and whitening hair in place, yet this all came from the artist’s imagination.

Seokjin looked at the paintings, comparing and contrasting: one a lost memory, the other a wistful conjuring. A life lived together that had never existed was more real to the artist than the man she had lost. Forty years. Imagine loving anyone you’ve lost for that long – or anyone you have not lost.

“It’s, uh. It’s, ahem. Powerful,” he managed, throat tight. Fucking hell, he would not well up at Namjoon’s gallery over this! What had gotten into him lately?

Yoongi also looked affected. “What a sad life,” he said.

“What’s this one about?” Siyeon asked, stopping in front of a small square painting, the shapes in it such dark blurs that Seokjin struggled making them out. Seokjin discreetly wiped the corner of his eye.

“Hyung,” Namjoon’s voice came, and Seokjin turned around. Namjoon was crossing the gallery in long strides, a warm look in his eyes. “You made it!”

Namjoon had dressed up for the occasion: he was in a smart black suit, foregoing a tie to hint at a more casual gathering. He looked good, even when Seokjin knew Namjoon was running on two or three hours of sleep after making sure everything was ready for the day’s party. How did he do it?

His hands felt inexplicably sweaty. “Namjoon-ah, there you are. Jungkook-ssi here has been showing us around.”

Behind Namjoon was a beautiful woman with long black hair, heeled boots, a too-short skirt, and a billowy laced top. She had a small, pretty face with a pointed nose. She was carrying Jungseob. Seokjin thought she also worked there until he recognised Oh Hana – one of Namjoon’s many exes, from how many years ago now? Two or three?

Yoongi too recognised her. “Hana-ssi,” he said, gaze shifting between her and Namjoon. “Good to see you.”

“You too! Can you believe how big this one’s gotten?” she said, lifting Jungseob in her arms. The look on her face was genuinely adoring. “Seokjin-oppa, I heard that you’d moved back!” she then said – oppa, really? Were they that close, having met a few times years ago? “Aish, you haven’t aged a day, oppa!”

Never mind, Seokjin liked her.

“You look ravishing today,” he said, with just enough enthusiasm that straight girls loved hearing from gay guys. “That skirt? Such a good look.”

Hana looked elated, and Seokjin forced goodwill out of his pores. It was none of his business if Namjoon invited his ex to Jungseob’s baek-il – none at all. Poor motherless Jungseob…

“Namjoon told me about your situation,” Hana continued with a worried but congenial smile. Seokjin glanced at Namjoon. Great, just great! Now he was a person with a “situation”. On the whole, one’s aim in life was not to be that person. “Your place will be in Mapo-gu? I’m in Mangwon, we should meet up for coffee once you’ve moved!”

“For sure,” he said, nodding too much.

Between Jungkook and Hana, that was two people now who had said Namjoon had talked to them about Seokjin: two. Two! Why was Namjoon talking about him to his co-workers and exes at all?

Namjoon excused them, saying he had to make sure everything was ready for the photo-op, and Hana followed him. Namjoon’s mother was eyeing them too with a woman who must have been her sister; they looked so alike. Namjoon had uncles, aunts, and cousins present.

“Why is Namjoon telling everyone my business?” Seokjin said quietly, sipping on his wine.

Yoongi shrugged. “She probably asked. Poor girl will never get over Namjoon leaving her like that.”

“Yeobo,” Siyeon said in a warning tone – too late.

“Like what?” Seokjin asked.

Yoongi just hummed, giving Jungkook a friendly smile, while Siyeon made a point of examining the art nearby. Jungkook looked very curious to hear more, and so was Seokjin. He loved a good bit of relationship gossip, especially if it involved someone he knew.

Hoseok showed up a little later, just in time for Namjoon to gather people around and thank them all for coming. Seokjin stood at the back with his friends, observing Namjoon’s nearest and dearest. Namjoon had plenty of people who cared for him and, by extension, for Jungseob. Namjoon smiled throughout the speech: delivered off the cuff, of course, but heartfelt and engaging. Jungseob fussed only a little and stared at his appa for most of it – this painted a sweet picture of the father and son.

Once done, Namjoon stood behind the table that was set up with flower arrangements and platefuls of tteok, and everyone got out their cameras to take pictures. An elderly man in front of them said to Namjoon’s sister, “Where’s his wife? Why isn’t he waiting for her?”

“He has no wife, uncle. He’s a single dad,” she said in a tone that indicated she had said this a dozen times.

“What kind of nonsense is that?”

“He has a point,” one of the cousins said under his breath – around Namjoon’s age, beady-eyed with an ugly goatee. Fucking asshole…

The photo-op went successfully, however, and Namjoon went over to check the pictures Hana had taken. Right, she was a photographer! Seokjin remembered now. Was that why she had been invited?

He downed some more wine, the collar of his shirt feeling too tight as he watched everyone mingling – but mostly he noticed how close Namjoon and Hana still seemed. Hoseok was chatting with Namjoon’s mother, and Yoongi walked around holding Jungseob until the baby looked up at Yoongi and burst into tears. Poor thing probably feared kidnap.

Yoongi and Siyeon had to leave soon after, and the guests started filtering out into the early evening. Hana gave Namjoon a long hug goodbye – oh, she clearly was not over him.

He and Hoseok stayed behind to help Namjoon and Jungkook tidy up. The decorations had been rented from a party company, and they put everything back in boxes while Jungseob, now in a navy onesie and out of the hanbok, was sleeping soundly in the pram – not even the popping balloons stirred him.

As Hoseok and Jungkook were folding the tablecloth, Hoseok glanced at Namjoon and said, “So, Hana certainly was helpful today, huh?”

“She’s a photographer. I asked her to photograph,” Namjoon said, popping the last of the helium balloons with a safety pin. “And no, it’s not what you think, Hobi-yah. She’s dating someone new.”

“Oh?” Hoseok said, voice going high-pitched in surprise. Hoseok looked at Seokjin with big eyes. “I wonder what she wants then?”

Namjoon too looked at Seokjin, as if waiting for him to ask something, but he had nothing to ask.

These kinds of family gatherings were always tests for new parents, even in normal circumstances – an occasion where everyone came and judged you. Namjoon’s circumstances were not “normal” as some of his family members had muttered under their breaths, even as Namjoon had tried hard to show Jungseob was doing just fine under his care – and Jungseob was, for the record. Seokjin was glad they had left.

“Hana took some great pictures of Seobie – she forwarded a couple already,” Namjoon said, with something just a little defensive to his tone.

“She sent pictures? Let me see,” Seokjin said. Namjoon dug out his phone and walked over, and Jungkook too joined them, looking at the screen. Seokjin grinned. “Ah, see, I told you the yellow jumpsuit would look good on Jungseobie!”

“You were right – he was like a cute little daikon this morning,” Namjoon said.

“Did she send anything else? Oh god, that’s his I-am-pooping face.”

Jungkook’s eyes widened. “How do you know?”

“It’s very distinctive,” Namjoon laughed, swiping for more pictures, “and look at the pout in this one.”

“Hana has a great eye,” Seokjin admitted, still thinking that new boyfriend or not, Hana seemed to have a soft spot for Jungseob’s appa. He pointed at the screen. “Can you send me this one?”

“Sure, let me—”

“Hyung, what happened to you?” Hoseok interrupted. “Did little Jungseobie melt your frozen heart?”

Jungkook too was looking at him curiously, eyes shifting between him and Namjoon.

“Come on, it’s Namjoon’s kid,” he said. “I don’t get why I would fawn over a baby I don’t know, but I know Jungseob. He and I have an agreement.”

“Oh?” Hoseok laughed.

“Mm, I’ve promised to hang out with him as long as he doesn’t throw up on me again. So far, so good.”

“Constant peril,” Namjoon said gravely but shot a knowing look at him. “I’ll send you the pictures right now.”

Seokjin quickly looked away.

After they had tidied everything up and left Jungkook to lock up RKive, they stood outside waiting for taxis together. Seokjin was on his phone, checking on the app where the taxi was, when Hoseok leaned over curiously. “Yoongi said you were getting busy on Grindr. Any luck?”

He froze, mortified. “Yah, and now Yoongi is reporting my business to you? Why are people talking about me behind my back?”

Hoseok shrugged, feigning innocence.

“Also why are you pestering me? He isn’t dating either – we surmise,” he said and motioned at Namjoon, arching an eyebrow.

“Well, he’s a busy single dad,” Hoseok said, like that excused Namjoon from intrusive questions.

“So? Isn’t that one of the most sexually frustrated categories?”

“Trust me, I’m too exhausted to even think about sex,” Namjoon said, and Seokjin quickly decided not to consider the highs or lows of Namjoon’s libido.

“Uh huh, and that’s our taxi!” he said, flagging it down.

The pram had a magic button that you pressed to get it to fold in on itself – the detachable carrier doubled as a car seat, which Namjoon set up in the back while Seokjin took the passenger seat. No such thing as easy travel with a kid, but thankfully Jungseob was knocked out cold, and they chatted to the driver pleasantly about Jungseob’s party the entire drive.

They had to do the same unfastening and reassembly of pram and carrier outside Namjoon’s house, but Namjoon did it proficiently. This would have been an even bigger hassle alone: Seokjin was carrying the leftover tteok and the large sack of baby gifts.

They squeezed into the lift together and, on the way up, Namjoon said, “I didn’t know you were on dating apps.”

Seokjin stirred, brain catching up to the unexpected topic. “Oh. Well, yeah, I guess… I mean, how else do we meet people these days, when we all have lost the simple art of face-to-face conversation?”

“No, I— I meant that I didn’t know you were seriously looking for a boyfriend.” Namjoon paused. “If you are?”

His throat felt tight. “I guess I’m not really sure,” he said, refusing to meet Namjoon’s stare as the doors opened to the top floor. He stepped out quickly, carrying the party gifts and snacks with him, pressing in the door code with, “Hey, you mind if I grab a shower? Long day.”

Maybe the defensiveness with which he avoided the question was covering up for the hollow feeling that Jangkun had left behind.

Seokjin slept in late on Saturday, but through his sleep he heard Namjoon up and about, humming along to some music. When he smelled coffee, he dragged himself out of bed.

The morning was full of sunshine, the large windows of the living room letting light in. Jungseob was on the playmat, doing what he did best: staring and wriggling.

“Morning,” he called out to Namjoon, padding to Jungseob.

“Coffee?” Namjoon called back.

“Yes, please,” he said, picking Jungseob up and sitting onto the couch with him. “Oof, hefty little thing, aren’t you?”

Jungseob’s gaze was curious, however – a watchful look in his eyes. Seokjin stuck his tongue out at him. Jungseob looked unsure. Seokjin stuck out his tongue again, and Jungseob kicked his legs and laughed, face lighting up.

Namjoon appeared from the kitchen with two mugs of coffee, wearing nothing but loose grey sweatpants. The V of his hips was well-defined, stomach taut and chest muscled – fuck, he was beautiful. Seokjin’s gaze belatedly snapped up to Namjoon’s eyes.

Namjoon asked, “You wanna come hiking with us?”

“What?”

“Yeah, I was planning to climb Bugaksan with Jungseob. I mean, if you have no plans or… or dates, or…?”

Hiking? On a Saturday – the day of rest in some Abrahamic religions? Nothing sounded worse to him than—

“Yeah, sounds great,” his mouth said. What the fuck?

An hour later they were on the hiking trails of Bugaksan that started a brisk uphill walk from Namjoon’s building, with Jungseob securely strapped to Namjoon’s chest and Seokjin acting as the mule for baby supplies. The rucksack on his back was heavy with extra clothes, nappies, baby sun lotion, wet wipes, milk bottles, creams, mosquito spray, a thermos of hot water for the powdered formula, a second thermos of cold water to mix it with, and he was definitely forgetting a few items. The weight on Seokjin’s shoulders indicated why he had been invited to come along.

Jungseob had a red sunhat on and his face had been lathered generously with sun lotion. Namjoon was full of energy, in sturdy hiking boots and navy shorts – and the worst part of it was that some of that enthusiasm was rubbing off on Seokjin.

“This is his first hiking trip,” Namjoon enthused. “He’s gonna love the view from the summit!”

Jungseob was very unlikely to take a look at Seoul spread out beneath them and pipe up, “Appa, appa, can I see the Blue House from here?”

The Bugaksan hiking trails had given Seokjin one epiphany thus far: that he was just as lost in Seoul as he had been in Sydney. He now headed up these trails a second time, hoping for his mind to stay blissfully blank.

Namjoon climbing up ahead of him helped in that regard: that was a great ass. Not too big, not too small, but truly the Goldilocks of asses. It was muscled and perky – Namjoon definitely did squats when he worked out. And those thighs? Could probably pop a watermelon.

“We’re starting to see some great views!” Namjoon said.

“We sure are,” he agreed and kept climbing. It was one thing to be blessed with a figure like Namjoon’s, but the fact that this was matched with talent, wit and success? Very unfair. Even worse, those were superficial qualities to praise. The real icing on the cake was how Namjoon was at home: attentive, caring, and committed. He always remembered the most trivial things that Seokjin said to him, and he always came home early enough to see Jungseob before his bedtime. He was passionate and creative, and it showed in everything that Namjoon did.

Namjoon waited for him atop stone steps leading up a particularly steep part of the path, where he had attracted the attention of two ahjummas in purple and blue waterproof jackets and pink sun visors. The women were beside themselves baby-talking at Jungseob, whom Namjoon was proudly showing off. Namjoon laughed, answering their questions of how old Jungseob was, and Seokjin gazed up at him from the halfway point of the gruelling stairs, his chest feeling tight and painful but in a nice way.

This was when the hills of Bugaksan hit him with a second epiphany that he had not asked for: he was attracted to Namjoon. He was strongly and undeniably attracted to him: that smile, those eyes, those hands, those legs… And worse: his personality. His stupid jokes. His ambition. His thoughtfulness. Seokjin liked everything about him in a way that made him feel queasy.

Namjoon was around him constantly, being casually hot and wonderful, and Seokjin had known that of course, but hadn’t thought that this had anything to do with him personally.

But no: Seokjin was hiking on a Saturday morning because Namjoon had asked him to, and like a schoolboy with a crush he had said yes because he wanted Namjoon to think he was as cool and spontaneous as he was. Why did he want that? Because he had feelings for Namjoon.

As soon as the epiphany hit him, he pushed it aside. No, couldn’t be! What a useless goddamn—

But it was true, and suddenly the awareness of it was spreading through him.

He stopped, out of breath and shocked. He had feelings for Namjoon: romantic, sexual, and completely misplaced. Fuck.

He wanted to turn around and walk away – but, of course, couldn’t. He power-climbed the rest of the steps, thighs burning. The ahjummas were still cooing at Jungseob, one of them saying, “He must look like his mother, am I right?”

Namjoon’s smile faltered. Seokjin, out of breath, said, “Not at all, this little guy looks exactly like his appa.”

The ladies chuckled and bid them goodbye while Namjoon’s arm curled around Jungseob’s back protectively, in a way that made Seokjin’s heart clench. He took Namjoon in like seeing him for the first time: perfect. He was perfect.

This was too cruel.

“The scenic point is just over there,” Namjoon said after a beat, and Seokjin nodded and followed – cursing himself as he went. Stupid, stupid, stupid…!

The viewing platform had a wide information board identifying buildings gleaming in the distance. Namjoon got Jungseob out of the carrier, holding him so that he could see the view.

Jungseob gurgled.

“That’s right, Seob-ah, it is a great view,” Namjoon encouraged, pressing a kiss to his sunhat. Seokjin felt nauseous. “Well? Worth coming up all this way, hyung?” Namjoon prompted, turning to him with a bright, excited smile that made Seokjin feel weak.

“Yeah, it was definitely worth it,” he lied.

He should have stayed in bed.

Love was fundamentally composed of two ingredients: time and exposure. Spend enough time with someone, and in the end it was not that strange if you started liking that person. You didn’t even need instant chemistry – that could emerge with time.

Even so, Seokjin had never expected to be attracted to Namjoon, which in hindsight seemed ridiculous given how physically attractive Namjoon was. Dress him up in tiny rainbow-coloured shorts and throw him on a float during Mardi Gras, and every man there would be salivating.

Yet they had known each other for years, and he had never thought of Namjoon like that so why now? Spending weeks watching Namjoon walk around sleep-deprived in baby-spewed shirts did not seem like catnip for the gays either. Seokjin just had nothing going on romantically, and he was projecting those needs onto Namjoon. That was not Namjoon’s fault, but it was Seokjin’s fault a little.

‘Crushing on my straight friend’ was, of course, a gay rite of passage, but you got that shit out of your system at the age of seventeen – you did not do it at Seokjin’s age. Yet it was there, a sudden squeezy sensation at the pit of his stomach whenever he thought of Namjoon.

He needed to spend less time with Namjoon, he thought, to snap himself out of it.

Two days later, however, he found himself having lunch with Namjoon and Jungkook. He’d had a business meeting near RKive, and Namjoon had left paperwork at home. When he dropped into the gallery to drop it off like a good house guest, no ulterior motive in sight, Namjoon invited him out for lunch.

Jungkook was at the back of the gallery, affixing a label next to a painting that had just gone up. “We should invite Jungkook, too,” Seokjin had said because lunch one-on-one seemed too intimate for him right then. He then wished he had just said he was busy. Why were the easiest lies always the hardest ones to come up with?

Namjoon frowned but said sure.

The place that did the best pork belly in Insa-dong was a few streets over. The ahjumma got the grill going and surrounded it with banchan dishes. Seokjin kept the small talk going – yes, he spent his life staring at computer screens, but he had excellent social skills. Charming, his grandmother had always called him. Besides, he needed to focus on something other than Namjoon sitting next to him, beautiful and unattainable.

Seokjin decided to quiz Jungkook, and it soon turned out that Jungkook painted his own works. Had he ever sold his art?

“He could sell his work if he tried,” Namjoon said, turning the meat on the grill with tongs. “He is just a bit of a perfectionist.”

“Ah, hyung, my craft just isn’t ready yet,” Jungkook said restlessly, and Seokjin looked between the two in amusement. Jungkook had done an internship at RKive right out of university, and Namjoon had quickly decided to keep him. Jungkook clearly felt comfortable enough around Namjoon to speak his mind; Namjoon wasn’t an intimidating boss, then. Even so, Jungkook still seemed a little bit in awe of him, cheeks flushing as Namjoon praised his work.

“My favourite artist? Well, there are so many mediums,” Jungkook said a little later. Seokjin put some pork belly and ssamjang onto a lettuce leaf, wrapping it up neatly and shoving it into his gob in one go. God, that was good! “But one of my all-time favourites is Lee Jungseob.”

“Jungseobie?” Seokjin clarified with Namjoon, and Namjoon nodded – brow furred as he tried to pick up one of the pickled perilla leaves for his ssam. Seokjin reached over with his chopsticks, peeling the perilla leaf for him and placing it into the lettuce wrap on Namjoon’s palm. “He’s your favourite painter too, isn’t he?”

Namjoon nodded. “Yes, definitely. I visited the museum in Jeju, and they had the most wonderful exhibit.” Namjoon picked up some of the grilled meat and put it on Seokjin’s plate. “My mother went not too long ago, and— Jungkook-ah? Are you okay?”

Jungkook was staring at them, expression surprised. “Hmm? What? Yes. Yes, of course.”

Seokjin shrugged this off, wondering aloud if he should visit Jeju. Namjoon said that his mother always welcomed guests, but Seokjin privately wondered if such an invite extended to him. They kept chatting although Seokjin noted Jungkook’s sudden silence. He seemed to be observing them, but Seokjin was not sure why. Namjoon put some more grilled meat onto Seokjin’s ssam, grilled to perfection. He’d missed this in Australia.

“I wonder if Jeju is a total tourist trap now,” he said, peeling another perilla leaf for Namjoon when he once more struggled.

“Wasn’t it always?” Namjoon said, wrapping up the lettuce in his hand. “Remember that trip we took there once?”

Jungkook cut in with, “You went to Jeju together?”

Namjoon paused, ssam nearly in his mouth. “Oh, back in university, with Yoongi and Hoseok.”

Jungkook’s gaze was searching. “So that was before you lived abroad, Seokjin-ssi…?”

“Before I moved to Australia with my boyfriend, yeah,” he nodded.

Coming out to people he barely knew was always jarring – people often got a look on their faces: either one of surprise like they thought it impressive he was straight passing, or perhaps a smug ‘I knew it’ look, and Seokjin found both of these equally frustrating. Still, he made a point of saying it: of being clear and transparent, especially here where it still needed to be said.

This afternoon, however, saying it left him oddly exposed. Namjoon was sitting right next to him, minding his own business, and Seokjin felt broken. He thought of Jangkun, of Jungseob, he even thought of Oh Hana, and finally of Namjoon. He was such a fool for feeling this attraction, for letting it consume him and control him.

Jungkook asked, “And now you’re staying with Namjoon-hyung?”

“Until my apartment is ready,” Seokjin said slowly. They had covered all of this at the baek-il already, but Jungkook looked like he was hearing it for the first time. What was Jungkook implying? That Seokjin was trying to turn Namjoon through osmosis?

Namjoon’s hand landed on his arm, and Seokjin turned to him instantly, heart skipping a beat. “You want to order some more beef?” Namjoon asked him with big, questioning eyes, and Seokjin thought of all the years they had known each other, only for it to end up here: with him feeling lost in Namjoon’s gaze.

“Yeah. Yeah, sure,” he said, because he would have said yes to anything Namjoon asked. Namjoon looked around for the ahjumma – hand retreating, but the warmth of the simple touch lingered.

Jungkook was looking at Seokjin.

He knew.

“It’s great you’ve reconnected,” Jungkook said, but it sounded evasive like he was skirting around the topic at hand.

He knew, and Seokjin felt sick.

If a complete outsider could read Seokjin so plainly, how long would it take before Namjoon did too? Before Namjoon inevitably got up halfway through one of their late-night talks with a ‘whoa, hyung, I hope you haven’t misunderstood…?’ and Seokjin would sit there with his cheeks aflame with humiliation? ‘You didn’t really think I was into you, did you?’ Namjoon would ask with that straight guy shock that had disgust in it.

“You know what, Namjoon-ah, I think I’m full after all,” he said before Namjoon could call out a new order.

What he meant was that he had lost his appetite.

To start off his Friday night, Seokjin made himself a drink with the vodka he’d bought the day before, mixing it with Chilsung cider like a classy bitch. He drank half of this and willed a wild TGIF mood to surface. Namjoon was still at work, and Eunha was minding Jungseob, but Seokjin focused on himself: he had places to get to and things to do.

It felt awkward to take a long shower and tidy up his ass inside and out while Eunha was in the house, but what could he do? He had to prepare for these things. Excessively long showers probably only fit whatever she thought of him, anyway.

Afterwards he waited for the face mask to moisturise his skin as he lay in bed and read articles on the city’s best gay bars. He needed gay friends in this town, someone to tell him where to go. He didn’t want a club filled with twenty-year-olds and he didn’t want to accidentally wander into a fetish party either, although hey good for them. He eventually IDed a bar/club that looked a little pricier, advertising itself with its gin collection rather than cheap shots. That would do.

Through the door, he heard Namjoon return and Eunha leave for the week. Soon after a knock sounded – he peeled off the face mask and got up.

“You want to order food?” Namjoon said, carrying a sleepy looking Jungseob. Never mind Jungseob getting separation anxiety: Namjoon got separation anxiety, and when he got home he wouldn’t let Jungseob out of his arms.

“Ah, thanks, but I’m going out.”

“Oh? Seeing Yoongi?”

“No.”

“Hobi?”

“No, just— just going out,” he said, vaguely and lamely, ignoring the way his heart started beating faster around Namjoon these days.

A frown crossed Namjoon’s face. “Alright then.”

Seokjin finished his drink and made another. No beers tonight – he was going straight in. He put on black trousers and a black dress shirt, sleeves rolled up to his elbows, the top few buttons undone. He looked classy and a little expensive, hair styled off his forehead, and a musky cologne clung onto the skin of his neck. Yes, this would do.

When Seokjin emerged from his room, Namjoon was sitting by the playmat on the living room floor, making Jungseob look at the hanging toys and teaching him the colours despite it being past Jungseob’s bedtime. Namjoon looked up at him, gaze moving from the tips of his toes up to the crown of his head.

“So, you’re going out,” Namjoon said, something conclusive to his tone. Seokjin, for whatever useless reason, had no smooth comeback for that. “Is it… Is it a date? Did you, uh, find someone on one of those apps?”

He paused, unsure. “No, I’m just, uh… Well, I guess I’m going out to see what I can find.”

Namjoon’s gaze didn’t waver, and Seokjin did not know what to do with his hands.

“Will you be out late?”

He fidgeted. “Potentially.”

Wasn’t that the point?

Namjoon seemed to be searching for words as Seokjin remembered every single time in high school when he had sneaked out to make out with cute boys – that all boys’ school had worked in his favour for the most part. That same ‘I hope my mother doesn’t find out’ nervousness lingered on him now.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said, retreating.

Namjoon kept his eyes on him but said nothing.

A taxi was waiting for him outside, and only in the backseat did he feel like he could breathe.

The club wasn’t so bad: a large hall with a dance floor and a balcony, and plenty of tables for patrons. Seokjin leaned against the bar, the easiest way to signal that he was alone and looking for company. The clientele was nearly all men, with the odd woman here or there enjoying a club where she wouldn’t get groped. A few guys came up to him while all he could think was that he should have moved past this in life. This, downing vodka mixers while the music drowned out any real conversation? This was for people who had little to talk about, but Seokjin had so much to say – and no one to say it to.

He thought of Namjoon’s confused stare as he had been leaving, like Namjoon didn’t like the fact that Seokjin was going out. Why? Seokjin couldn’t be there every fucking night, cooing over Jungseob’s latest baby milestone. He needed to build a new life in this city, so he couldn’t just hang out with his three friends, all of whom were mostly too busy for him. Once he moved out, how often would he see Namjoon and Jungseob anyway? Not often at all, he imagined. Not often at all. The thought made panic swell up in him.

He closed his eyes, felt the beat of the music – mindless club pop, a woman’s vocals singing about how her lover was her saviour. He should go dance, shake it off…

“Bad night?”

He looked to his right. The man was about Seokjin’s height but more muscular, with beautiful brown eyes.

“I’ve had better,” he said, sipping his drink while the guy flagged down the bartender. Fuck it. “It’s on me.”

“Thanks,” the guy smiled, leaning against the bar, facing him. “Have you ever modelled? What, do you get asked that a lot?”

“Yeah,” he said, paying up for the man’s drink but not getting another one for himself just yet. If he was going to take this guy to a hotel, he at least wanted to remember it. “But no, I have never modelled.”

“Well, the night is still young.”

Seokjin sensed this going into a ‘I’m a photographer, can you pose nude for me?’ direction.

The guy sipped his drink. “So why has it been bad so far?”

Seokjin took in a lungful of heavy, suffocating club air – felt the alcohol loosen his tongue until only the truth was resting upon it. “I kind of like someone. A friend of mine. Straight.”

The guy laughed, teeth pearly white. “Rookie mistake.”

“Yeah. Ain’t it just?” he asked, taking a sip of his drink.

“He married?”

“No. I wish he was – maybe it’d knock some sense into me.”

“Is he hot?”

He thought of Namjoon sitting on the floor of the living room, in his baggy home clothes – doing nothing special at all.

“He’s… unbelievably sexy,” he said, throat tight, mind scurrying. “And settled. You ask him what he plans to do for the next twenty years, and he will give you a long answer. Whereas me? Well, I don’t even know where I’ll wake up tomorrow.” He paused, looking at the now empty glass in his hand – thinking of Namjoon hiking up mountains, finalising art deals, badly singing Jungseob lullabies. “He’s magnetic.”

A look of sympathy crossed the man’s face. “You got it bad, huh?”

No, it wasn’t bad. It couldn’t be bad. It was just overflow from Seokjin’s own frustrations, which he had headed out to address.

“You could help me get over it,” he said, turning to the man more.

“Hmm, like a chivalric hero,” the guy mused, tilting his head. “I could do that for you.”

The man pulled Seokjin closer and kissed him: and ah, this. A talented, commanding mouth against his, overtaking his senses. He was starved of physical affection and sexual attention – this was what he needed.

He made out with the guy for two songs, the heat of it filling him like melted butter. Their hips slotted together, crotch against crotch. A hotel? The man’s place nearby? And then what? Do the walk of shame in the morning, never to meet again? Who thought this was a good way to meet anyone? And those hook-up apps, how did you go on those and say sure, you wanted dick, but also love would be nice? Was love out of fashion?

“You want to get out of here?” he asked, skipping a whole hour of flirting and grinding and sexily dancing together.

“Absolutely,” the guy said.

Ten minutes later they were in a taxi to the guy’s place. In Sydney, Seokjin would be sucking the guy’s face some more, but not here, not in Seoul. Instead they talked to the driver about the weather and tried to guess when the cherry blossoms would bloom – maybe they were all feigning ignorance: the two of them and the driver.

The guy had a studio near Seoul Station. Seokjin looked around quickly, seeing a few houseplants and a few family pictures. Good, good, unlikely to be a psychotic murderer at least.

The man pulled him into the bedroom, tasting of gin and— the next hour was what it was. The bed creaked, the sheets were strewn about, and Seokjin’s toes curled in pleasure. The guy had a muscular chest, some downy hair trailing down across his stomach, and Seokjin found it so sexy that he couldn’t stop touching it. The man went hard and fast, and Seokjin had needed it.

There. He was back to his roots, away from the confusing domesticity of Buam-dong. God, why wasn’t his new apartment ready yet? How long did it take to install windows and add a few floors?

“I hope that was what you wanted,” the guy said at the door, hands on his waist, giving him an open-mouthed goodbye kiss.

“It definitely helped,” he said, sliding hands down the guy’s chest once more. Exchange numbers? Follow each other on social media? Ask him out for a date – yes, he had been pitiful in the club, but he’d shown his worth in bed, with the man whimpering during his climax.

“See you around,” the guy said. Right, there it was: the ‘we’ll never see each other again.’

In the taxi back, Seokjin thought that everyone was right about him: he did not know what he wanted. Casual hook ups were leaving him cold, ergo he clearly wanted a relationship – right? But when he’d been with Jangkun, hadn’t he always been looking for a way out? And so where the fuck did that leave him? Was he just… broken?

The alcohol pulsed in him, and he felt like a wounded animal bleeding in the backseat of the Hyundai.

It was nearly four in the morning when he pressed in the code to Namjoon’s apartment and slipped inside, toeing off his shoes as quietly as he could. The lights were on in the living room, but they often were throughout the night. Seokjin focused on being quiet, just a drunken well-fucked ghost who artfully tiptoed past the hallway plinth with the tastefully abstract animal statuette and—

“Hey.”

He stopped, hand on the doorknob of his bedroom.

Namjoon had stood up from the living room couch, looming large in the dead of the night. Something worried and restless clung to his stature.

“Oh, you’re awake?” he managed, throat tight and horror settling in. He knew he smelled of alcohol, smelled of sex, had swollen lips, reddened eyes, messy hair. He cleared his throat, motioning to Namjoon’s bedroom. “Is Jungseob struggling to sleep?”

“He’s slept alright,” Namjoon said, and confusion settled into Seokjin further. “Did you… have fun?”

Seokjin jolted at the question, a bitter sensation spreading. What the fuck did that mean?

When Namjoon let the question hang in the air, he asked, “Was it Yoongi?”

Namjoon frowned. “Sorry?”

“Who told you to keep an eye on me – was it him?”

“What? No, I—”

“And was that why he told me to come stay with you, so that you could all monitor me?” he asked, indignation rising. “I don’t need babysitting, and— and I’m doing just fine, actually, and if I want to fuck every guy in this city, then I will, alright? I don’t need puritanical monandrous bullshit—”

“I was just worried about you,” Namjoon cut in, interrupting his irrational monologue and ending it in one blow. “I couldn’t sleep because I was just… just worried. Some guys can be real creeps in those gay bars, and I wanted to make sure you’re safe, and—”

“How would you know? More to the point, why the hell would you worry?”

“Because you’re important to me,” Namjoon said without missing a beat, like that was obvious and all the reason Namjoon needed.

Seokjin halted. The feeling that was always inside of him grew in size, becoming more painful and more persistent. He had spent a whole year in Sydney after Jangkun went his own way, not being important to anyone. He’d swallowed it down: not mattering. So what? Not all people could matter. Not all people could be special to someone. He was just one of those people who didn’t matter to another living soul, but that was alright. That was okay. He had been fine.

He would not cry – fucking hell, he would not cry.

He steadied himself, swallowed it all down. “Yeah. Yeah, I had a lot of fun, but I really need some sleep now. I’ll put in ear plugs, so don’t worry about making noise in the morning.”

“Hyung,” Namjoon said quietly, taking a step closer to him – and then he just stood there in the living room looking at Seokjin intently, worriedly, and softly.

Namjoon was important to him too. And Jungseob, too – Seokjin loved that kid. Jungseob didn’t even do anything! Just gurgled and shat and slept and cried and smiled and laughed and smelled all nice and felt all warm and looked a lot like Namjoon, and Seokjin absolutely adored him.

“Goodnight, Namjoon-ah,” he said, feeling defeated and overwhelmed.

He slipped into his bedroom, undressed, and soon he was curled up under the covers, wiping away the tears that were spilling onto his cheeks. What an end to a night this was! Fucking fuck…!

It was stupid of Namjoon to stay up waiting for him – stupid, so stupid, and so sickeningly sincere that Seokjin wanted to tell him to fucking stop it already. Just stop it! He did not need Namjoon to worry about what stupid shit Seokjin did with the men of Seoul.

None of it was as stupid as what he was doing at home.

Namjoon wanted to talk to him. Just that: “Hey, could we talk when I get back tonight?”

Everything between him and Namjoon had been a little off the past few days. Seokjin had apologised for whatever he may have drunkenly said when coming home from the club, pretending he did not remember what he’d uttered: but he did, word to word. Namjoon had said it was no problem and that he hadn’t meant to overstep any boundaries. They both had been genuinely apologetic, but over what? Because you’re important to me.

Now, however, Namjoon wanted to talk to him.

“Sure,” he said, standing in the kitchen in his pyjamas, still trying to wake up while Namjoon was in his nice gallery owner clothes and heading out the door.

Namjoon gave him a forced smile, and Seokjin knew it wasn’t good.

When Seokjin received a call that afternoon that the building completion had been pushed back yet again, he thought it only fitting for what was already a shitty fucking day. He wished he hadn’t so naively assumed that the building would be ready when they had said it would be. He could not stay with Namjoon and Jungseob indefinitely like this. He had to go.

He looked at short-term rentals, flinched at the prices, but he found some AirBnBs that were going for cheaper. They were aimed at tourists, of course, but was he not a stranger in his own country? And Namjoon would be happy to get his place back, right? No drunken mess tiptoeing in at the dead of night?

That was probably what Namjoon wanted to talk about, anyway: kicking him out.

He shortlisted a few potential lets and decided to bring it up himself with Namjoon that evening. He then returned to work, sending client emails on new projects while sipping on an iced americano in the neighbourhood café.

When he got to Namjoon’s, he heard Jungseob through the door – the wail only got louder as he entered. Eunha was walking circles in the living room, Jungseob in her arms, trying to soothe him. “Ah, he’s having a bit of a bad day today,” she said, rubbing his back.

Seokjin lowered his messenger bag to the floor, frowning as he took Jungseob from Eunha – Jungseob’s face was bright red and his nose was snotty.

“The world’s not that bad,” he said, tucking Jungseob into his chest and bouncing him. “The world’s not that bad so why are you crying, huh? Shh, shh, shh.” He made grabbing motions for a rag, and Eunha was swift to hand him one. Jungseob kept crying as he tidied up his face and smoothed over his downy baby hair.

“He must be hungry too – he was refusing to eat,” Eunha said worriedly.

He motioned towards the kitchen but kept walking around while Jungseob cried, but it lacked the sharp, bewailing edge it had had earlier. Eunha returned with a bottle, and Seokjin sat down in the armchair Namjoon always used. Once he had Jungseob in his lap, he muffled the weakening cries with the bottle.

He smoothed over Jungseob’s soft cheeks. “You have to eat to grow big, alright? You can’t cry all day, Seob-ah, no matter how much you want to.”

He kept talking to him, letting Jungseob eat. Soon Jungseob’s tears had dried up.

Eunha said, “You did in ten minutes what I couldn’t do in an hour.”

“We have an agreement,” he said, eyeing the time on the TV’s standby window. “You must be finishing soon? You can head off if you like – I’ve got this until Namjoon comes home.”

He stayed in the armchair after Eunha had left, watching Jungseob fall asleep in his arms. What a silly thing, crying his eyes out like that. What for? What on earth for? He stroked Jungseob’s hair, humming to him quietly – the melody that of a lullaby. What did anything else matter? The postponements with his building, invoicing his clients, looking at his depleted savings account…? Small details, inconsequential.

Not many people needed him, or anyone, truthfully, not even Jungseob. But sometimes, just sometimes, Jungseob would get fussy or moody, and even Namjoon couldn’t get him to settle. On a few of those times Seokjin had taken over, and Jungseob had settled in his embrace instead. Did that not mean that sometimes Jungseob needed him – even if it was only once a week? Was that not enough to matter in this world: to be needed, even once a week?

He kept humming as Jungseob slept, studying every feature of his face, the dark eyelashes, the red cheeks, the button nose. Where did they make perfection like this? Those little ears, the double chin, and the tiny fingernails. He could stay forever like this, just watching Jungseob.

“Hey.”

He looked up to see Namjoon standing at the other end of the room, still in his overcoat.

He returned to himself, unsure when Namjoon had come home or how long he had been watching them. “Oh. I, uh… I told Eunha she could go.”

Namjoon nodded, slipping his coat off and leaving it over the back of one of the dining chairs. He walked over and crouched in front of them – leaning in and pressing a kiss to Jungseob’s cheek. Jungseob stayed fast asleep.

“He had a bad day,” he explained – whispered. Why was he whispering?

“Looks like he’s having a good one now,” Namjoon said, meeting his gaze. Warmth flooded through him.

He was quiet for a few beats, organising his thoughts.

“About my building. It’s been postponed again, and— and I don’t want to overstay my welcome here.” He pulled Jungseob closer to his chest. This wasn’t his child. This wasn’t his— “But I wondered if I could stay a bit longer, anyway.”

Namjoon’s gaze did not stray from his face. “Of course you can stay.”

If Seokjin had been an even bigger fool than he was, he would have leaned over to kiss Namjoon. Thankfully, he still had some sense left.

He only then recalled the other reason his day had been so tense. “You wanted to talk?”

Namjoon was quiet for a while, brows knitting ever so slightly like they did whenever he was lost in thought. “That can wait for another day.” He stood up. “I’ll leave you to it?”

He nodded – said nothing else.

He was content where he was: just him and Jungseob.

For Seokjin, the week had been nothing special. He had finished a work project and met Yoongi and his wife for dinner.

For Namjoon, the week had been less ordinary. His mother flew in from Jeju to see her grandson, of course, but also to visit her husband’s grave on the anniversary of his death. Three years now. The loss was still fresh, and Seokjin tried to give the family the space they needed.

On her second and final day in Seoul, Seokjin overheard Minjin say, “At least I have Jungseob, but I wish your appa had gotten to see him.”

What was life if not revolving doors? Some characters exiting the room, and others entering. It was funny how often those coincided.

Seokjin spent that evening at the gym, checking out guys. Fine, so sue him. He needed some eye candy to spend forty minutes on a treadmill, and he was hoping to see someone who could make him forget the nervous warmth that filled him whenever Namjoon was around him lately. He would get over his infatuation, he was sure of it – he just needed to run it out of his system.

As he ran, he was also thinking of his own parents who he had not yet visited, nor had they asked him to. His father just didn’t know what to do with a gay son, not even after all this time, and his mother didn’t know how to disagree with her husband. It wasn’t anger or animosity that lingered between them, but a loss: his parents felt sorry for failing him, and he had declared independence years ago. It had been easier to be defiant at twenty-four. Now they were all getting older. Would they regret these silences one day, when it was too late?

He took a taxi back to Buam-dong and up the winding street to Namjoon’s place in the evening dusk. It was cherry blossom season, and branches overhung from the high walls of a few of the houses, drinking in the last of the day’s warmth.

Back in the apartment, he found Namjoon sitting at the kitchen table, a glass of whisky in hand. He looked tired and drained, with little colour to his face. It was bad if Namjoon had resorted to the comfort of liquor, which he never did. Seokjin was intruding on someone else’s loss and sorrow, but that evening he felt some of it himself.

“Did your mother get to the airport okay?” he asked, putting down his gym bag.

Namjoon nodded. “Yeah, she landed already. Should be home soon enough.”

“Tough few days?”

Namjoon nodded again, eyes downcast.

“Need a drinking buddy or privacy?”

Namjoon smiled down at the glass, dimples appearing. “I think… I think I’ll take company.”

“Alright,” he said, getting himself a glass and sitting down. He motioned at the whisky bottle, and Namjoon poured him a drink. “I warn you, though: I can drink you under this table very quickly.”

“I’ve no doubt,” Namjoon smiled, but grief was there in his eyes. Seokjin wanted to make it go away.

Namjoon talked about his dad – about the kind of person he had been and how, despite the fortitude of his mother, she was clearly lost without him. The heart attack had come out of nowhere. Was that better, to go so quickly? Or was a prolonged illness preferred because, even if there was pain and suffering, there was also a goodbye? Who knew? Seokjin didn’t, and as they talked Namjoon couldn’t make up his mind either.

“We’re too young to plan our deaths,” Seokjin warned.

Namjoon hummed. “I thought so too, but then you have a kid, and— it changes how you think. Especially when I’m faced with leaving my son alone in the world. You know I had a will written up when he was born? I got that worked up about dropping dead out of nowhere.”

“You’re insane.”

“Hoseok thought so too,” Namjoon chuckled, but shrugged. “I’m young and healthy, relatively speaking, but… I’m not immune, and heart conditions run in the family. Not everyone gets a long life. My appa didn’t, and Jungseob died at forty.”

It took him a second to reorientate himself. “Lee Jungseob?”

Namjoon nodded and took a sip of his whisky, politely turning away from Seokjin as he did so. It was now dark outside, and Seokjin took a sip of his drink and felt the warmth of the liquor in his belly.

“I highly doubt that Lee Jungseob’s death has anything to do with your prospects,” he pointed out to Namjoon.

“I didn’t mean it like that, I meant that… that he died trying to be a good dad. He was trying to earn enough money on his paintings to go see his wife and kids in Japan. They’d moved there because of the war. He hadn’t seen them in years, and… He missed them. We have some of the letters he wrote to Masako – that’s his wife – and he doodled small drawings in them, probably to make his kids laugh. But between the war, poverty, the thirty-eighth line… He’d lost everything. You see it in his paintings too. And so he went from one hospital to the next, self-medicating on alcohol, and… and he never got to see his children again. And I’ve been thinking about that all week: parents and children, passing each other by, and I wonder did I name Jungseob well? Or did I curse him?”

He reached out for Namjoon’s whisky glass and took it away from him.

Namjoon laughed. “Yeah, that’s fair.”

Seokjin knew the darkness that lurked inside of everyone if one accidentally started digging down. Namjoon was too good for that.

“Our Jungseobie isn’t a reincarnation of a tortured artist, alright?”

“I know. I know… I just… want to give him the best life. The best. And I want to be around to see him grow up, but then I think of my father, and well— it might not be up to me. That’s all I could think about at the cemetery today.”

Seokjin didn’t blame him – just mourned that Namjoon took so much onto himself.

He stood up, the chair screeching a little. He opened up his arms. “Come here.”

Namjoon blinked.

“I said come here. This isn’t a request.”

Namjoon stood up, and Seokjin pulled him into a hug – not one of those ‘no homo’ hugs that were fleeting and apologetic, but a good, firm hug that lasted a long time. He squeezed the wide expanse of Namjoon’s back, keeping him close, and Namjoon relaxed and hugged him back.

Into the meat of Namjoon’s shoulder, he said, “It’s okay to worry – all parents worry. But you can’t let it sweep you away. Jungseob only sees what’s in front of him, and that’s where you need to be, alright?”

Namjoon nodded, tightening the hug – and this surprised Seokjin, but he let him. Namjoon smelled of whisky and cologne this close, but also there was a scent to his skin that was just him. Good. Namjoon smelled so good. Ogling at gym bros had not cured Seokjin whatsoever.

Namjoon exhaled against him, chest rising and falling. “Thank you.”

“No need,” he assured, heart weighed down like it was made of cement. “No need at all.” He let Namjoon go but kept hands on his shoulders. Namjoon was looking at him so intently that he faltered, feeling like he had missed a step.

He gave another fraternal squeeze. “Well, I better—”

Namjoon stepped into the space between them, arm slipping around his waist, and Seokjin knew what was happening. He knew but could not believe it, could not process—

Namjoon cupped the side of his face and kissed him.

He kissed him.

Each nerve end in Seokjin’s body was set alight, and such sudden and intense heat rolled up and down his body that his knees felt weak. Namjoon pressed closer, still kissing him – and he couldn’t help but kiss him back, hands slipping to loop around Namjoon’s neck, high on the warmth of him, the solid weight of him, the scent of him. What was happening? How?

His body melted where Namjoon’s hands touched him: one palm on the small of his back, warm and commanding, and one on the side of his neck, large and intimate. It was perfect.

Namjoon’s mouth was wet and tasted of whisky, and his plump lips felt every bit as good as Seokjin had dreamed. The kiss was slow – and that was the worst part. It was slow and deliberate and deep, and Namjoon was kissing him like he did all things in life: with complete confidence and determination.

Namjoon pulled him closer, tongue moving past his lips—

And Seokjin untangled himself, cheeks burning and mind spinning, heart going haywire. “Wow, the, uh— You, uh— That’s too much whisky, I—”

He didn’t know where to look, what to do.

“Hyung.”

“We better sleep it off, huh?” he said, hand lifting to his temple where panic was transforming into a headache. He had been here before – at fifteen, at seventeen. They always blamed Seokjin once they sobered up: the star of the track and field team saying that it was Seokjin’s fault they had made out and that he didn’t want Seokjin to speak to him ever again. Replace that person with Namjoon, and he couldn’t take it. He couldn’t take it. What was he doing? “It’s been a long day. A rough day. We’re both tired, and—”

“I know what I’m doing, hyung,” Namjoon said, taking a firm but gentle hold of his wrist but his nervous gaze gave him away. “I know I should’ve told you already – I’ve been meaning to tell you, but… but it was never the right time, and I didn’t—”

“Wait, what? What are you saying?”

Namjoon bit on his bottom lip. “That a lot happened while you were in Australia. A lot, and… and you’re not the first man I’ve kissed – far from it.”

He stared. “I see.” What the…? “What? Since when?!”

Namjoon flinched. “Technically since always? I was just… slow on the uptake. But in practice, ah, a couple of years now.”

“A couple of years,” he repeated faintly, mind spinning, throat dry, world collapsing. “So, what you’re telling me is that you’re, what? Pan, bi, demi, homo, some other Greek prefix?”

“Bi.”

“Right so… so you’re bi but didn’t… didn’t tell me, and then you just, what? Kiss me?” he asked, completely bewildered. The persistent warmth he felt around Namjoon felt so much more catastrophic now, with a hundred Buddhist monks banging gongs of warning inside his head. Why had no one told him? Warned him? He had been making such a fool of himself, and— Namjoon was what?

But Namjoon was looking at him worriedly, and Seokjin had done this himself often enough: telling someone he cared about. And so he knew, intimately and deeply, that it was not relief that you first felt, but the fear of rejection.

He squeezed Namjoon’s shoulder. “Wow. Um. Great? Good for you. My dongsaeng’s all grown up. This is great, really. Hey, listen, I just remembered I have a work email to send, so I’ll just… But really, I’m happy for you. Great job.”

Great job?!

“Thank you for telling me,” he added, because that was what he was supposed to say. “I’m really proud of you.” Another automatic response. They weren’t lies but he had slipped into autopilot. Namjoon was…?

Namjoon did not look reassured. “I should’ve told you weeks ago, I know that, but I just… kept psyching myself out, and—”

“Well, now I know,” he said, heart beating so fast it was going for a personal best. He let Namjoon go, staggering backwards. “See you in the morning, alright?”

Namjoon was upset. He knew it, and Namjoon knew that he knew.

He soon closed his bedroom door behind himself, wishing it had a lock, wishing he had a plan, wishing he knew what he was doing, wishing he didn’t feel weak from the most intense kiss he had been given in years.

You could wish for a lot of things – didn’t mean you got what you asked for.

Seokjin hoped not to see Namjoon the following morning. Maybe they could both just slip into their respective days and after that they could simply never mention the kiss again. That was, by Seokjin’s estimation, the only way to preserve the status quo. He heard Eunha arrive as usual, and shortly afterwards he tried to sneak into the bathroom.

This was when Namjoon appeared out of nowhere, looking earnest but determined. “Hey, there you are. I thought we could go get coffee before I leave for the gallery? I’m meeting with a sculptor today, and I have to host her and her husband, but I’ve got a bit of time before that.”

“Coffee?” he repeated and, failing to come up with a lie, said, “…Sure.”

This was how he found himself walking downhill with Namjoon in the early morning, the cherry blossoms still hanging over the walls and dropping petals onto the street. Namjoon was quiet, hands in the pockets of his long coat, and Seokjin tried to read the silence: was it foreboding? Upset? Indignant? Where the hell did they go from here?

“It’s a lovely morning,” Namjoon said.

“The air pollution isn’t bad,” he agreed.

The coffee shop was off the main road next to other trendy cafés. Many customers were dropping in, but few were sitting down. They got lattes, and Namjoon directed them to the quiet window table at the back, as far away from the door and the counter as was possible. Seokjin took a seat facing the interior, and Namjoon sat opposite him, facing him and the wall. The morning sunshine showed clearly where the windows needed washing. Ambient jazz played in the background. Seokjin heard his heart beating: one, two—

“I’m sorry for freaking you out last night.”

Seokjin swallowed, throat tight. “Aish, that? That was… that was nothing. And you know, I’m super happy for you, and I think it’s great that you are. That.”

Should he have somehow known – but how exactly? Sometimes you could read people, sure. Sometimes you could not at all. And, despite what some paranoid conservatives thought, there was no secret code that magically connected Seokjin to similarly oriented men.

Yet what difference would him knowing have made? Would he have refused to move in with Namjoon? Of course not. But he would have questioned his growing attraction in a completely different way, and when Namjoon pulled him into a kiss, he…

Namjoon looked tired, not the usual Jungseob-tired but lethally tired – tossed and turned all night. His brows were tightly knit. “I know I just dropped all of that on you. I think I should explain myself more.”

“You don’t have—”

“But I should, right?”

“I mean if you want to,” he said, feeling like a deer in headlights.

No one had told him or given him a goddamn warning. Not Yoongi, not Hoseok, but of course they weren’t the kind of people to out Namjoon. But Seokjin was stuck thinking of all the times he had made a cheesy joke about cute guys or treated Namjoon like a clueless straight boy. Why had no one stopped him from embarrassing himself? Why hadn’t Namjoon just piped up and said ‘that’s such a funny joke about choking on a big dick, because you know I’ve sometimes had that problem myself’?

Namjoon’s knuckles were white around the cup of coffee, his usually confident and calm façade wound up and nervous. “You remember Hana?”

Hana? The sleek-haired, smooth-skinned, objectively beautiful photographer that Namjoon had dated for a few years?

“Of course.”

Namjoon nodded. “So, her and I broke up some months before appa died. It was a really hard time – a really hard year, and not just because of those two things. When I was with her, I kept feeling… or processing that there was something else. For me. I guess I’d always thought that, but as I got older it felt more… glaring.”

“Okay,” Seokjin said slowly.

“And so I broke up with Hana because I— I thought I might be bi, and I couldn't really come to terms with that within our relationship, and she said I was selfish and I know that I was, but… but I left her, and— and fuck, turned out I was a lot more bi than I even thought, like it was this whole new world and I was coming into it so late, and everyone else had gotten such a head start,” Namjoon said, all in one breath.

“And so I started dating men, and it was… such a relief? In a lot of ways. Like I finally made sense to myself, and I had a word for what I was, but… but the rules seemed all different, because dating guys is not like dating girls; the expectations were not shaped in this patriarchal system, and I just kept thinking I should have figured this out when I was a teenager. Like fuck, how do you figure this out when you’re twenty-nine?

“And I was so envious of guys like you, who knew early and who got to grow up with it. I just… I just thought everyone looked at other guys, like, wow look at that guy and how fucking hot he is. We all have eyes, don’t we? I thought that was a normal thing for a straight guy to think, hell I even thought that the crushes I had along the years were just, like, normal straight guy things, can you imagine? But no, turns out not all guys think that way.”

Namjoon took a very deep breath. “So that year a lot happened. A lot of it not good, but I figured myself out. And Hana knows, and my close friends know, and my mother and sister know. I never got to tell my dad, and I’m sad he never got to know who I am or get to know Jungseob. And Hana, I feel guilty about that to this day because she didn’t care either way and wanted us to stay together, but I— I had to figure this out on my own. And you were in Australia, and it was not something to get into when you visited once a year or whatever, you know? But now I feel like an asshole that I never told you, although— although in my view, this is between me and the person I am seeing, and I don’t think I owe explanations to anyone. So I don’t really talk about it often, not like you talk about being gay, but it’s not like I’m trying to hide it, I just—”

“Namjoon-ah, take a breath.”

Namjoon did and then took a long sip of the latte, making a face from burning himself. His fingers drummed against the porcelain as he set the cup back down. “So I guess what I’m saying is that… that although not that many people know, I should have told you when you first got back. But I haven’t seen much of you the last few years, and I was only telling people I was close to.”

“And we aren’t close.”

“Weren’t close,” Namjoon corrected, and Seokjin thought of the kiss again – of Namjoon’s mouth on his, firm and commanding. His heart started to beat fast, nervous and unsure.

He forced himself to focus on something else, mainly this: Namjoon hadn’t married in order to start a family. That had always struck him as odd. Now?

“Is this why you had Jungseob on your own?” he asked with sudden clarity. “Because I always wondered why you hadn’t just married, so… so is this somehow…?”

Namjoon rubbed at his neck, fidgeting. “Yeah. Yes, but it’s… kind of a long story, and I need to go soon.”

“Okay,” he said. Namjoon was not an open book even now.

He did not think of Namjoon kissing him.

He did not think of Namjoon’s hand on the small of his back.

He did not think of the kiss and how perfect it had been.

They were in the café on a bright spring morning with cherry blossom petals floating down and past the window. Namjoon’s brown hair landed messily around his head, and he was beautiful. God, he was so beautiful.

“Can I touch you?”

Namjoon blinked. Frowned. “Of course.”

He reached over and took Namjoon’s hand in his, squeezing it so tightly that he was sure it must hurt. “Okay, so… first of all? Welcome to the club.”

Namjoon blinked, and very briefly his eyes looked dangerously watery, but he blinked quickly, wiped over his eyes with his free hand, and broke into the brightest smile Seokjin had ever seen.

And that? That was everything.

Seokjin went for a run in the nearby valley that evening, wanting to enjoy the cherry blossom season while he could. The valley was caught between two residential neighbourhoods and was full of well-worn trails, with birdsong in the trees and the sound of trickling water in the nearby stream accompanying the sounds of his steps. He didn’t go slow, taking in the burgeoning foliage in the trees; he didn’t stop to smell the earth or breathe in the air or take pictures; he kept his pace fast, back slick with sweat, calves aching, using the uneven paths and rocks as an obstacle course that he had to focus on.

The intention was that this required attention and, as such, this would stop him from thinking.

He came to a stop at the small temple in the middle of the valley – abandoned but brightly coloured. He had already circled around it twice.

As soon as he paused, intrusive thoughts caught up to him: if he had known about Namjoon, he wouldn’t have pushed him away from the kiss. He would have pulled him closer.

“Fuck,” he breathed, ribs stinging.

The valley was in no way similar to the coastal paths of Sydney – the stream could not compare to the endless bends of the Parramatta estuary. He was not, however, a different person from the one he had been there. He was still that guy: the one he felt so lost as. Namjoon coming out didn’t change the fact that they were just friends, and that Namjoon was adjusting to a lot of life changes, and Seokjin was what he was. Nothing had changed. Nothing had to change. So Namjoon had kissed him after a bit of whisky? That did not mean anything, and it wasn’t like Namjoon knew that Seokjin had started to harbour feelings for him.

So why was he doing this run, knowing it would overlap with Namjoon coming home? What was he avoiding?

He was on the brink of a sharp and deep drop, and if he messed up here, he’d pull Namjoon down with him. Even worse, he couldn’t call Yoongi or Hoseok for a second opinion – he was on his own for this one.

He slowly made his way back.

To his surprise, Eunha was still at the apartment. Eunha mostly considered him as Namjoon’s weird, techy loner friend whose sexuality was questionable. Namjoon was such an upright citizen with an adorable son to boot, however, (from a scandalous affair, she perhaps wondered in Seokjin’s imaginings) that she forgave their unorthodox living arrangements.

Even so, Namjoon made a point of being punctual on his returns home so that she could finish her day and Namjoon could put Jungseob to bed himself. Now he was not there, and Eunha was giving Jungseob his evening feed in Namjoon’s armchair. “He called to say he would be coming in late,” she explained.

“Ah,” he managed. Had Seokjin said something thoughtless at the café that morning? Was Namjoon now avoiding him too?

He reluctantly went for a shower and set to make himself dinner. Eight o’clock – Jungseob was asleep and Eunha was primly watching some TV, just a little guiltily like she should have been cleaning or cooking or earning her keep in some other way, even though the place had been near spotless since she had started working there.

When it got to nine o’clock, he said, “Eunha-ssi, are you sure you wouldn’t rather go home? I can mind Jungseob.”

“Well,” Eunha said, checking her phone. “He said he would call, but he hasn’t…”

“Go home for the day, Eunha-ssi. You have worked hard.”

She played the right amount of hesitant, checked on Jungseob quickly, and then left with many thanks extended to him. After she had gone, he tried calling Namjoon – straight to voicemail. What on earth?

He sat in the living room, eyeing the tasteful paintings on the walls, letting a variety show play itself on TV. A man of Namjoon’s size could not disappear in this city – he was simply too big to be shoved into a suitcase or a car boot. Unless they cut him up? What if they’d cut him up? When could Seokjin file a missing person’s report?

It wasn’t that Namjoon owed Seokjin a timely return to home – it was Jungseob. Namjoon could never get back home to him quickly enough.

Was this how Namjoon had felt that night when Seokjin had gone out clubbing? Sitting here, worrying? This was awful. This was shitty.

It got to nine o’clock – early for any grownup. Not early for a single dad of an infant.

It was quarter to ten – nearly ten! – when the front door beeped. Seokjin was up on his feet, hurrying over. The door swung inwards, and Namjoon stumbled in, tie crooked, cheeks flushed, eyes glassy.

“You’re drunk,” Seokjin said in complete surprise more than anything.

Namjoon stilled, eyes focusing on him only after a few beats. “I’m, um… Eunha-ssi can— Is Seobie...?”

It turned out that the sculptor Namjoon had spent the day entertaining was a drinker – her and her husband both. After conducting business at the gallery, they had gone out for dinner: round one. Then to a cocktail bar: round two. Then to a pub: rounds three, four, five… Namjoon had made the rookie mistake of saying he had a nanny, and at that point the couple had not considered there to be any rush at all.

Sitting at the dining table with a glass of water Seokjin had poured for him, Namjoon said, “They kept pouring me drinks, kept— kept insisting. But they’ll do the exhibition launch with us. I got it! I— I got it but…”

But in order to celebrate, they had gotten Namjoon absolutely trashed.

“Thank you,” Namjoon mumbled when Seokjin deposited him in bed. Namjoon sprawled, with Jungseob’s cot tucked into the space between the wall and the bed. Jungseob was asleep, with dim light coming from the nightlight on the side table, none the wiser.

Seokjin sat down on the edge of the bed and pulled covers over a fully dressed Namjoon – he was not undressing him, not by a long shot. “I’ll turn on the baby monitor on my phone, alright? In case you sleep through him crying.”

“I’m not that drunk,” Namjoon whined self-pityingly, hand over his face. “I just— barely drink these days, I… Tolerance… low.”

“Uh huh, and now you sleep off your entire… bottle of soju?”

“Fuck you, it was more than that,” Namjoon laughed, and Seokjin grinned at him. Namjoon blinked up at the ceiling and was quiet for a few beats. “Glad you’re here. What kind of a dad—”

“No, you’re not going down that road,” he cut in before Namjoon could start feeding his guilt. If there had been no Eunha, no Seokjin, Namjoon would have refused those drinks, no matter how rude. “You deserve a night off – maybe just plan it better.”

Namjoon exhaled and, as his hand brushed against Seokjin’s knee, an electric shot ran through him. The kiss was still there: under Seokjin’s skin, traversing his veins, rushing in his bloodstream, knocking fervently at the gates of his heart. Even before the kiss there had been attraction. Now…

“Sleep it off, alright? I’ll have the app alerts on,” he said, standing up.

“Hyung?” Namjoon asked, and Seokjin hummed in response. The room was quiet. “I’m not sorry I kissed you.”

He was glad it was dark because he was sure warmth flooded his face. He also knew Namjoon was looking at him.

When his straight friend Namjoon had kissed him, of course alarm bells had gone off. When his bi friend Namjoon kissed him…? Knowing where Namjoon was coming from, knowing the difficult time he’d had? And even worse, knowing himself: lost and indecisive, always unsatisfied with no idea what he wanted?

Namjoon deserved better than that.

Namjoon and Jungseob deserved better.

“Too complicated to talk about?” Namjoon asked at length, not sounding nearly as drunk as Seokjin wished he was.

“Yeah, we… we’d better leave that one alone,” he said – waited. Gave Namjoon a chance to respond.

Namjoon did not, and Seokjin left the room. He was such a fucking coward.

Back in his room, he got into his pyjamas and slid under the covers. He had barely slept the night before and was worried he’d repeat it. Thankfully, exhaustion began to pull him into sleep.

Hyung?

He stirred at the sound of Namjoon’s voice, his phone screen lit up in the dark. The monitor app had activated, but when he reached for it on the screen was nothing but Jungseob fast asleep in his crib: the feed was made of hues of green, like looking through night goggles. Even so, it had picked up Namjoon’s voice.

The app was built for two-way communication. Seokjin’s thumb hovered over the “speak” button, but he did not press it.

I don’t know if you can hear me, but I should say one last thing, Namjoon’s voice came steadily, and Seokjin held his breath. Waiting. Anticipating.

If… If you feel this too? Then I don’t think it’s complicated. I don’t think it’s complicated at all.

Seokjin had been accosted before. It was nothing he wasn’t used to, and as the years with Jangkun had continued, it had been flattering to get attention. He knew how to accept a drink but make clear that was all it would be, and he could turn someone down with a semi-apologetic “I am spoken for” line – and then he would bask in the attention he had been given.

This? This was nothing like that.

Outwardly nothing changed. Namjoon went to work in the mornings, Seokjin got on with his projects, and Jungseob still needed feeding, changing, burping, and he had really mastered rolling onto his stomach like a pro. They would talk, have dinner, co-exist… Every interaction just felt so loaded, no pun intended. Namjoon made no move on him, did not insinuate or ask, and Seokjin could not relax.

It was absurd to think that just because they both were attracted to men they would be attracted to each other. Chemistry and desire were much more complicated than “hey look, we both tick this same box in the equal opportunities questionnaire” and then you waltzed into the sunset. But… they were attracted to each other.

Seokjin had a lot to process. Namjoon? Kim Namjoon? That arts dork that Yoongi had one day dragged into their tiny student apartment nearly a decade and a half ago?! Who had, fine, grown up extremely well into a handsome, intelligent, successful, and charming man with a propensity for dick?

Namjoon had left the ball in Seokjin’s court. Who did that? Who left the ball with him? He had never even played basketball! Wait, tennis? He had played tennis… Point being and idioms aside, leaving it with him was an awful move.

Seokjin trusted himself very little to make good choices. After all, he was solely responsible for his life: he had decided on his studies, he had decided to date Jangkun, he had decided to move to Australia, he had decided to become a consulting software developer, and no one had particularly forced him to do anything.

Being a mess at his age would have been more tolerable if he’d had someone to blame it on – but no. He couldn’t even blame Jangkun for uprooting him because he had already been rootless. His entire life was his own design, and his persistent loss of direction was his own creation. Why would Namjoon leave this to him? What kind of a twisted mind game was this?

If you feel this too? Then I don’t think it’s complicated.

Well, when he thought of it like that, then sure, they could sleep together. Why not? It’d probably be good.

His mind blanked out after that.

The problem was that they would see each other the day after, and then the day after, and most certainly at Jungseob’s high school graduation in two decades minus a little. Whatever they did together wouldn’t be without consequences.

Seokjin would be the grown up here and he managed to play that part until Tuesday, around seven o’clock in the evening, in the kitchen (was this a crime scene?). Namjoon was shower fresh and in loose navy pyjama trousers and a grey t-shirt. He was talking about the upcoming exhibition and the RKive press release that had gone out that day, while mixing the instant ramyeon he was having for dinner.

Seokjin had been seated at the kitchen table, listening to Namjoon talk, eyes traversing the sheer size and expanse of him restlessly. The t-shirt was tight, clinging onto Namjoon’s back and stomach snugly, while the loose pyjamas curved cosily over the swell of his ass – not improper in any way, but promising an easy removal.

He looked so homey and just so… attractive.

“Do we have any cheese sticks left?” Namjoon asked, rummaging through the fridge.

Seokjin stood up, walked over, and when Namjoon turned around holding a pack of cheese sticks, Seokjin slipped an arm around his waist and kissed him.

It was funny how the world could stand still at times.

The distant hum reverberating through him sounded like wind pushing through a thick forest – steady, soothing, and omnipresent. Namjoon kissed him back. Just like that. Namjoon kissed him, food left on the counter, arms moving to encircle him, pull him closer, consuming him.

“You feel it too?” Namjoon asked, voice low.

He nodded. “Yeah, I do.”

Their first kiss had been slow.

This was less so.

Namjoon pressed him against the counter, and all Seokjin could focus on was Namjoon’s mouth – how good it tasted and how good it felt. His heart was beating so fast that he felt his pulse at the hollow of his throat.

There had been push and pull – uncertainty and doubt. Now?

Namjoon hoisted him up to sit on the counter, large hands pushing his knees apart. Namjoon stepped into that space, never letting their mouths disconnect. Seokjin pushed his hands into Namjoon’s hair, kissing him, kissing him, kissing him. Why had nothing ever felt like this? Why did he feel like he was about to ascend, or combust, or implode, but all at the same time?

The kiss deepened, his tongue pushing past Namjoon’s lips, and Namjoon groaned. The kiss was needy and a little filthy – perfect. Everything about Namjoon was so perfect.

When they pulled back for air, his lips trailed to Namjoon’s ear. “I want you,” he confessed.

A sudden clatter – Namjoon had knocked the cup of forgotten instant noodles off the kitchen counter, soup and ramyeon spilling over the countertop and onto the floor.

They stopped, breathless and flushed.

Seokjin burst out laughing first, and Namjoon buried his face in Seokjin’s chest. Seokjin wrapped arms around Namjoon’s shoulders, pressing a kiss to his hair – breathing him in, feeling high. “Do we clean that up now or tomorrow?”

Namjoon groaned, lifting his head and reclaiming his mouth in a soft kiss. “Will you judge me if I say tomorrow?” he asked, his voice having gotten lower, and Seokjin almost shivered.

They still tidied up – giddily, if such a thing could exist, neither of them doing a good job of it. Namjoon checked on his phone that Jungseob was fast asleep in his cot, which he was. Namjoon’s eyes were bright; he looked happy and already a little debauched. Insane. Insane that this was the same Namjoon he had known for so, so long.

Yet it fell into place with such ease: the way they made it to Seokjin’s bedroom, closed the door, pulled each other’s shirts off. Namjoon was so warm, and Seokjin felt himself be sculpted into something new by the simple touch of Namjoon’s hands. Namjoon had been right: this wasn’t complicated when they both felt it.

What that ‘it’ was, however, Seokjin did not wish to investigate.

Down to their underwear, they laid on the bed kissing and touching. There was a certain patient quality to it; Seokjin knew that he did not need to fuck and dash. “When was the last time you had sex?” he asked, chest tight from the way Namjoon was on top of him and pinning him down to the bed.

Namjoon nipped at his jaw, fingers digging into his hips. “That’s a pretty personal question, don’t you think?”

“But we are getting personal,” he argued. Had Namjoon been dating throughout the surrogacy or had that been too weird when he’d had a child on the way? Had Namjoon practised abstinence or gone wild while he could? There was so much he wanted to know.

“It’s been a while,” Namjoon said, and that could be anything from two months to five years. (Okay, it could not be five years: Namjoon’s bisexual era of discovery was more recent.)

“We can take our time, then,” he promised, cock hardening at the thought.

Seokjin had not let himself imagine this too vividly, but any attempted fantasy would have fallen short. Once they were naked in bed together, the fleeting coyness that Namjoon had exhibited vanished. His touches and kisses were all firm and decisive, his mouth moving to Seokjin’s neck and chest with purpose.

It was heady and felt so different to all of Seokjin’s more recent hook-ups. What made it different? He couldn’t place it at first, but then it hit him: they were being gentle with each other. No one had been gentle with him in a long time.

He caught Namjoon’s lips in a kiss, their hips slowly grinding together. Namjoon was easily one of the sexiest guys he’d ever been with: the golden-toned skin, the muscled physique, the sizeable cock, the thick thighs, the firm ass. There were queer pin-up drawings of men like him – drawings because no one looked like that in the real world. And yet…

“What do you like to do?” he asked, reminding himself of Namjoon’s limited experiences with men.

Namjoon hummed. “You like getting fucked, right?”

He spread his legs a little more just from the question – fuck, play this cool.

“How do you know?”

“From a decade of you making jokes about getting railed?” Namjoon returned.

Touché.

“Did that ever make you think about fucking me?” he asked, deciding to turn the tables.

“Yeah. Yeah, it did,” Namjoon breathed, kissing him deeply, and Seokjin was glad he was lying down because his knees felt weak.

But somehow they were not in a rush. There was exploration and curiosity to how they touched each other, slowly moving these caresses below the waist and figuring out how the other liked to be touched. Seokjin wanted Namjoon’s hands all over him: brushing the insides of his thighs, sliding over his perineum, wrapping around his cock, squeezing his buttocks. The kissing grew more restless, their legs entwining. Seokjin tugged on Namjoon’s full cock, loving how this made Namjoon push into his hand. He wanted to learn this – to memorise all of this.

Soon Namjoon’s fingers were slowly rubbing lube onto his hole. Seokjin shivered from the press of Namjoon’s fingers, their mouths sliding together. Namjoon didn’t go further until Seokjin relaxed, and Seokjin was impressed by how quickly Namjoon found his prostate.

He bit on the inside of his cheek, rocking against Namjoon’s hand.

“It’s gonna feel so good to fuck you,” Namjoon breathed, kissing him deeply, two fingers buried deep in him. Seokjin kept moving against his fingers, seeking more contact – toes curling already.

Namjoon’s body was powerful. That was the word that came to Seokjin most clearly when Namjoon pushed inside him. Seokjin felt fired up and desperate, letting out a needy moan as Namjoon slid into him deep.

Namjoon buried himself to the hilt, tightly pressing against him and fitting snugly against his ass and spread legs. And then: the power. Namjoon’s body was full of it, an unrelenting force above him and inside him. It was all-consuming, and he couldn’t stop kissing Namjoon. Namjoon’s breaths were stuttered but his thrusts were not.

Seokjin moaned loudly, sprawled on the bed with raised knees. The slide was smooth and easy, even as Namjoon stretched him wide and kept him full. Namjoon’s large palms slipped to his buttocks, lifting him up and keeping him there. Namjoon straightened up to sit on his knees and began to work his cock into him harder.

Seokjin’s room was dark, but moonlight and streetlight were coming in through the windows. Namjoon was engulfed by the night, shades of oily blue dancing across his form. Seokjin traced those shades with his hands, caressing the stomach and chest, teasing the nipples, feeling the fast beating of Namjoon’s heart – biting on his bottom lip when Namjoon hit his prostate and made his entire body tremble. He loved getting fucked by someone who knew how, and he loved that Namjoon knew.

Namjoon was commanding, but Seokjin had no intention of pulling the hyung card and reprimanding him for taking control. When Namjoon pulled out and guided him to his knees and elbows, a hot flash of want left him weak. He also liked men who knew what they wanted, and he liked men who pushed into him just like this and whispered, “Fuck, hyung, you feel so good right now.”

“Yeah?” he asked, throat tightening.

Namjoon stayed still behind him, buried in deep and catching his breath, while Seokjin moved his hips and dragged himself on the length of the cock. He moaned, whimpered, let Namjoon hear how good it felt – Namjoon’s hands were gripping his hips tightly, and Seokjin arched his back, pushing onto his cock as much as he could.

“Hyung,” Namjoon said, a little desperately.

“I want you so bad,” Seokjin breathed, and it was in no way a lie, but he said it to rile Namjoon up.

It worked, too: Namjoon resumed his thrusts, slow but hard. The mattress was squeaking beneath them, and sweat was rolling up Seokjin’s spine from him leaning forward. His eyes were closed, his mouth hang open, and his fingers squeezed the pillow beneath him. Namjoon’s mouth was on his shoulder and the nape of his neck, body draping over Seokjin’s, hips continuously working. And the power – the relentless power and force of him, like a revving engine, gearing up and picking up speed.

Namjoon came first, which Seokjin had expected. Namjoon gripped his hips tightly as repeated, deep “ah”s spilled from his lips, hips stuttering, and Seokjin coaxed him with, “That’s it, give it to me— God, just like that, fuck baby, just like tha— Ah, ah, fuck, that’s it, that’s it—”

His own cock was still full and painfully hard, and he was fully prepared to jerk off on Namjoon’s beautiful abs as the final act. After Namjoon pulled out, however, he once more turned Seokjin onto his back – and kissed him fiercely before moving down to suck his cock. More than this, Namjoon pushed fingers back into him, fingertips rubbing into his overstimulated prostate.

Namjoon gazed up at him with wanton eyes, lips stretched around his cock, fingers working rhythmically and matching the bobs of his head. Seokjin was getting pleasured in all the right places, the stimulation pushing him to peak – and he was left breathless and loose-limbed on the bed in an absolute state, whimpering as he came in Namjoon’s mouth.

Someone had taught Namjoon well. Someone had taught him so, so well…

More than that, they had learned a devastating amount about each other, and they clicked: their bodies, their desires, the shared chemistry… That was not a given and there was no way of testing it beyond the obvious.

But they clicked, and it was earth shattering.

Seokjin pulled Namjoon back to his mouth, tasting his own sex on Namjoon’s tongue. They were lost in each other, pushing closer instead of pulling back. There was no turning back now.

In Sydney, Seokjin had joined a technology firm for a two-year graduate program. The money had been good for people in their early twenties – one of his colleagues had bought a convertible when aged only twenty-three. Jangkun had an entry level job at a bank, making use of his finance BA, and within a few years they made enough to start investing in Jangkun’s stocks of choice. This would eventually pay for their Rose Bay home.

When after five years Seokjin got sick of bad managers and was overlooked for a promotion, he quit the company and started working for himself. Within two years, he was making nearly double than what he had been. On the outside, people assumed him to be ambitious and career oriented.

He was not, however, motivated by career prospects at all. He liked coding, and he liked living comfortably. After that, he wanted a life that was not too stressful or too challenging – or so he had assumed until sleepless nights long after Jangkun had fallen asleep, wondering if he’d ever feel alive again.

Namjoon, by comparison, was a visionary.

“In Florence?” Seokjin double-checked as the two of them lay in the bed of Seokjin’s room.

“Mm, across the river from the Uffizi,” Namjoon said, tracing Seokjin’s bare chest with his forefinger. It was Saturday morning, and they were making use of Jungseob’s naptime. “Did you know there has been a seventeen percent increase in international sales of Korean art in the last five years? That’s a trend you want to start feeding.”

“Right, so that’s RKive 3 in Florence, after RKive 2 in Tokyo. RKive 4?”

“Oh, easy. New York City.”

“You’re nuts,” he said. Namjoon gave him a sparkling, dimpled smile, and he pulled Namjoon into a kiss.

Seokjin was still, in some ways, in a perpetual crisis that he had been fucking Kim Namjoon for a few weeks now. When Namjoon walked through the door in the evenings, all knowing eyes and warm smiles, Seokjin was not far from shoving Eunha out so that they could be alone. He contained himself, however, and the reward was worth it.

Namjoon’s phone pushed through a notification, and the sound of Jungseob starting to cry broke through. Namjoon exhaled, pressing a kiss in the middle of Seokjin’s chest. “Time for me to bathe him, I think. Let’s leave in two hours?”

He nodded, watching Namjoon get up and pull on a pair of boxers. “That’s a great ass!” he called after him in laudation, and Namjoon smacked his behind for show as he went. Seokjin burst into giggles, lying in bed – well-fucked and happy.

They headed further into Buam-dong a while later, pushing the pram uphill and debating their favourite movies. Seokjin had had some vague plans to go furniture shopping that day but hadn’t turned down Namjoon’s invite for brunch. Besides, his house being ready did not seem an immediate concern.

The café was at the bend of the steep road and had distant views of tall skyscrapers in the city centre. The place was known for its quirky decorations, with garden gnomes and flower arrangements at the front. They sat on the patio in the afternoon sunshine, Seokjin with Jungseob in his lap, and Namjoon with a cup of white tea.

Why not spend his Saturday with Namjoon and Jungseob? Once he moved out, it would be a pain to get to Buam-dong unless he got himself a car.

Namjoon looked at him and Jungseob, stirring his tea before sipping it. In the large navy tee, with a long-chained necklace hanging loosely on him, Namjoon looked effortlessly cool. “You ever thought of having kids?” Namjoon asked him.

He blinked. “No.”

The only people who asked him this question were strangers who did not know of his sexuality. Once they knew, they usually stopped asking.

“I had some friends in Sydney who had kids,” he mused, as if this somehow meant anything. They’d had some couple friends who’d adopted, and one lesbian couple who had done IVF. All great parents, but he and Jangkun? With a kid?

“You’re not bad with kids,” Namjoon said as Jungseob sat in his lap and looked around the patio with a slightly lost gaze.

He brushed over Jungseob’s jet black hair. “Well, he and I have an agreement.”

“Right,” Namjoon chuckled, then examined the view in front of them. “You know, I might not be done yet. I might want more.”

He raised an eyebrow – more kids?

“Good luck,” he said, even as the thought of two kids trailing Namjoon made him feel needlessly fond. A whole Kim clan, huh? “Between that and your four RKives, you have a busy couple of decades ahead of you.”

“I hope so,” Namjoon said, looking at him. Seokjin felt himself flush.

See, Seokjin had never been that ambitious. When buying the Mapo-gu apartment, he’d figured he could set up a comfortable life there: work in his home office, go out for lunch in nice restaurants, join the local gym, maybe pick up singing again… What else could he want? He could grow old there, become one of the neighbourhood ahjussis, and if he stayed handsome long enough, maybe he could continue seducing men into his years of retirement.

It wasn’t a particularly remarkable life, but not every life could be. Not everyone could be treasured and not everyone could be loved. But it would be comfortable, and if he worked hard enough at being grateful for what he had, he might finally feel settled and not like life had just passed him by.

Namjoon, on the other hand, was full of dreams: more expansion, more kids, more galleries, and more adventures. Seokjin did not like how that made him feel.

“Me having kids,” he said, reaching for his iced americano. “I’d have to be mad.”

Namjoon said nothing for a long time, and Jungseob grew restless and heavy in his lap.

He and Namjoon had agreed not to say anything about the two of them to anyone, and especially not to Yoongi or Hoseok. It was better for their friends not to know, to stop any intrusive questions being sent their way.

The first real test of keeping their business to themselves came at the Seoul Arts Centre on the night of Yoongi’s concert. The glittering foyer was crowded with concertgoers, and on the poster for the evening’s performance was the Western conductor of the philharmonic, with Yoongi next to him as the piano soloist. Some people were dressed up, others were in jeans and jumpers. Yoongi insisted that classical music would die if it stuck to its elitism.

Seokjin got himself a glass of wine from the bar and waited. Namjoon was on his way but had to drop Jungseob off at his sister’s place first. Seokjin was thinking how to make sure that the others would not notice that things had changed between the two of them when he got a message from Hoseok saying he had to cancel – Yoohyun had a migraine, and Hoseok wanted to stay and look after her. At this, Seokjin relaxed. Without the pair, he wouldn’t have to be on guard. The two were now looking for a place to move in together. Seokjin had advised not buying an apartment in his building because then they would be stuck waiting for another year! Ha ha…

Fuck, it wouldn’t take a year, would it? Jungseob would be able to walk at that point. Would be old enough, perhaps, to perceive Seokjin’s absence. Would maybe even miss him and be upset over a loss he could not understand.

Seokjin felt ill. He had to leave well before that.

He checked his wristwatch, noting that Namjoon was cutting it close. His gaze drifted across the foyer, landing on a handsome, stylishly dressed man with idol-like blond hair and simple dangling silver earrings. Seokjin stilled. Recognition washed over him, from over a decade ago – that was quite the makeover!

The man caught his stare, paused, and likewise recognised him. The surprise was mutual, and the man smiled at him – dear god, the past decade had been good for some, huh?

Before Seokjin got foolish ideas into his head, he noticed a tall, large man next to Park Jimin. Of course Jimin had a date, and of course he had come to see Yoongi in concert. Small world, huh? Small world. Good memories.

Seokjin was about to go say hello when an announcement rang in the lobby, asking everyone to take their seats. Jimin had vanished when Seokjin tried to locate him again, but this was when Namjoon appeared, out of breath and clutching their complimentary tickets from Yoongi.

On second thought, it was better Namjoon had not showed up to find him with Jimin.

“Sorry I’m so late,” Namjoon said, hand curling around Seokjin’s elbow to hold him. Seeking contact. Seokjin noticed.

He downed his red wine and left it on one of the trestle tables, saying, “Hoseok and Yoohyun had to cancel – you got Hobi’s text, right? Come on, let’s grab our seats.”

They were on the first balcony, front row. Namjoon watched the concerto with rapt attention while Seokjin leaned back and let the music wash over him, the swelling storm of the orchestra filling every nook and crevice of the huge, golden-glittered auditorium.

They were being good friends, here to support their pianist friend Min Yoongi, who was sitting at the black grand piano at centre stage, dressed in a black suit, fingers dancing across the keys. They were just being good friends; this was not an official date. Hoseok and Yoohyun should have been with them, after all – or would that have made it a double date?

After a crescendo in the concerto, Namjoon clutched Seokjin’s hand on the armrest between them, leaning into his ear with, “He is incredible.”

Yoongi was – and Namjoon did not let go of his hand for a few minutes.

Seokjin carefully examined Namjoon’s side profile as the music continued, with violins, cellos, clarinet, and contrabassoon interweaving with the piano. Namjoon looked so alive right then that Seokjin’s heart ached. He did not examine the sensation further.

Afterwards they joined hundreds of audience members in filing back out into the lobby. They would not go see Yoongi backstage because it was way past Jungseob’s bedtime, and they needed to pick him up. Seokjin already missed Jungseob.

Seokjin left Namjoon typing out a co-signed congratulations message to Yoongi and went to the men’s room. As he returned, he slowed down in his steps. Namjoon was talking to Park Jimin. Huh.

Well, Jimin was an old friend of Yoongi’s, so of course Namjoon would know Jimin too. What struck Seokjin more was, however, that Namjoon had tensed up, cheeks rosy, and that Jimin was drinking Namjoon in with a confident, amused smirk.

As he reached them, Namjoon looked even more flustered. “Ah, hyung, there you are. You, uh, remember Jimin?”

“Of course. Sorry I didn’t get to say hello earlier.”

“Not at all. You look incredible,” Jimin said, eyes sparkling, and Seokjin’s chest puffed up a bit. “How long are you in town for?”

“Ah, I’ve moved back actually.”

“Oh? I had no idea. What brings you back?”

“Well, uh, I guess I needed a change.”

“Just you?” Jimin asked, sharp as anything, and Seokjin nodded, thinking back to a very fun club night he’d had with Jimin a little before he and Jangkun got together. A very fun night.

This memory was less amusing, however, as he noticed Namjoon squirming, and Seokjin realised that Namjoon had absolutely, unquestionably, and indisputably slept with this man in the not-so-distant past. Jimin shot Namjoon the same knowing look that he had given Seokjin, and suddenly Namjoon appeared not to know what to do with his hands, where to look, what to say, or how to even behave.

Seokjin was at a loss for words.

“I think Yoongi told me you’ve had your kid now?” Jimin asked.

“Ah, yes. A boy, Jungseob. Would you like to see?” Namjoon asked, getting out his phone to show his lock screen, and Jimin looked at it with the disinterest that Seokjin himself would have shown in this scenario – had the child not, of course, been his Jungseob.

“He looks precious,” Jimin granted, but he was looking at Seokjin. “So you two came together then?”

The insinuation was clear.

Namjoon was shuffling awkwardly beside him but stood too close.

“Old friends, you know,” Seokjin said.

“Aren’t we all,” Jimin said, and Namjoon only seemed to pick up on the exact dynamics of their conversation then. Namjoon looked to Seokjin with wide eyes – yes, yes, Seokjin knew, now could Namjoon please be less obvious?

To their side, the handsome himbo from earlier was waiting for Jimin. Something about the size of the man reminded Seokjin of Namjoon – Jimin had developed a type, perhaps.

“Well, great to see both of you. Let’s not be strangers, alright?” Jimin said, hand landing on Namjoon’s arm and brushing down it before he was walking away with the click of his stylish black leather brogues.

Seokjin exhaled, feeling unexpectedly hot and bothered.

Namjoon looked scandalised but was too diplomatic to say anything. He was on his phone. “The, er, taxi to my sister’s to pick up Jungseob, er, we, uh. Ah, should be here in four minutes.”

They crossed the lobby in step with each other, Seokjin still processing that they were brothers-in-dick. It wasn’t unheard of – spend enough time pre-drinking cocktails at The Beresford, and soon enough you and your lover had more in common than singing in the local Out and Proud choir. Seokjin had not in his wildest dreams, however, imagined it would happen to him and—

In the backseat of the taxi, he said, “Well, that was… informative.”

The radio was playing classical music; the choice appropriate for the evening. Namjoon said, “The, uh, a few years ago Yoongi had a party, and uh…” He was fidgeting and speaking quietly, sucking in a breath. “It was a one-night thing.”

“Me too, probably twelve or thirteen years ago,” he said, feeling Namjoon’s panic. He turned to Namjoon, hand on his thigh. He tilted his head. “He gives great head, right?”

Namjoon blinked. “Amazing head.”

They started giggling in hysterics, and Seokjin shoved at Namjoon, who still looked embarrassed.

“You absolute dog—”

“As if you can preach!”

Namjoon’s sister looked at them oddly when the taxi pulled to the curb outside of her building. They stopped snickering and side-eying and got the pram folded up and Jungseob’s car seat fastened in the backseat. They then drove the rest of the way in warm silence.

When they were in the lift up to Namjoon’s apartment, Namjoon nudged his side. “You’re better.”

“What?”

“You’re better,” Namjoon repeated slowly, eyes fixed ahead of himself but with a demure smile on his lips.

He thought of the needy moans Namjoon let out whenever Seokjin sucked him off, and the desire that filled Seokjin surprised him – it was possessive in a way he hadn’t expected.

“You too, I think. Seeing Jimin brought back such memories… I might need help in dispelling them?”

Namjoon leaned over to kiss his cheek. “I think I can do that.” A peck to his lips. “Pot.”

“Kettle,” he snarked back, and Namjoon nudged at him again.

As they stepped out of the lift, he hoped to god that Jimin and Yoongi were not close enough to exchange bragging rights.

Hoseok, Yoongi and Namjoon went on a camping weekend each spring. Back in university Seokjin had been a part of these outings too, and he had brought Jangkun with him after they had gotten together. Back then these trips had involved scrappy second-hand tents and taking a bus out into the mountains, then trekking up paths to camping sites while most of the backpack weight came from beer cans.

Ageing, however, was good – a blessing. Yoongi expertly drove the rented campervan into the narrow streets of Buam-dong to pick them up. Their beers were in ice boxes, and the tent Hoseok had packed was brand new. Little Kim Jungseob was in a baby car seat with his big brown eyes and long dark lashes, looking at Seokjin curiously as he carried him on. The drive to Sokcho would take three or four hours, but the radio was tuned to trot classics, and they would drive to the camping site directly. Easy. A breeze.

If one discounted, perhaps, the foldable travel cot and the three bags of baby supplies… Namjoon had not been deterred by this, however.

Seokjin joined Yoongi at the front for the drive, while Hoseok, Namjoon and Jungseob remained in the seats in the middle where Jungseob’s carrier was firmly strapped down.

“It’s promised good weather!” Yoongi said, caffeinated and enthusiastic as they got going. Seokjin had not been on a trip like this in years, and he felt like he had transported himself to a much simpler time.

“Can we pull over to a rest stop?” Namjoon asked when they were barely out of Seoul. “Jungseob needs changing, and we don’t want him marinating. It gets pungent, trust me.”

Yoongi nodded, already changing lanes. “Roger that.”

The sky was blue, and mountains rose on both sides of the service station with the nearby multi-lane freeway emitting noise pollution. After returning to Korea, Seokjin had not left Seoul even once. It was a beautiful country, however, and breathing in the morning air rooted him into the ground more firmly. Namjoon had disappeared into the petrol station with Jungseob and one of baby bags, and Hoseok had gone to buy them more snacks.

Yoongi was studying the map on his phone, and Seokjin rolled on the balls of his feet, hands in the pockets of the blue waterproof jacket he had bought just for this trip. “You know, we ran into Jimin at your concert the other day.”

“Oh? That’s nice,” Yoongi said, with no further reaction to this whatsoever, and Seokjin relaxed a little.

“What’s he up to these days?”

“He does marketing and has a different boyfriend taking him to Bali or Shanghai every few months. Alright for some.”

He held back a smile and, apropos of nothing, added, “I wonder if there’ll be cute guys in Sokcho. I should check Grindr when we get there – who knows what hotties will be prowling the camping site.”

Yoongi snorted. “I admire your endless optimism in getting laid.”

He had woken up in Namjoon’s bed that morning, with Jungseob’s morning cries stirring him from sleep. He had kissed Namjoon’s face before getting out of bed, making sure not to wake him. Everything had been perfect.

“Why shouldn’t I keep my eye open? Nothing’s stopping me,” he said, just to gauge if Yoongi looked at him funnily but Yoongi did not.

Clouds gently rolled across the sky over their heads. Namjoon crossed the car park back to them, Jungseob propped to his side, and Seokjin perked up – there they were.

“Pot,” Namjoon said to him in greeting, tone all serious.

“Kettle,” he returned with a solemn nod, and a smile tugged at Namjoon’s lips.

Yoongi gave them a perplexed look but went back to studying his map.

That evening Seokjin was grateful he had been readmitted into this circle of friends. They could have cast him aside, putting him into a category of old friends since lost – but no, they had welcomed him back, and not only that but pulled him back in.

Yoongi grilled meat for them on the open fire, he and Hoseok set up the tent, and Namjoon set the table after Jungseob had gone to sleep in the travel cot placed at the back of the campervan. They had taken an easy waterfall walk at the entrance of the national park that afternoon. Those had been Jungseob’s first waterfalls, even if Jungseob had been sleeping against Namjoon’s chest for most of it.

The campsite around them was peaceful, distant conversation sounding from other campervans in the dark. The night sky was star-filled, and a nearly full moon was slowly traversing the sky. They sat in their camping chairs around the fire, eating steak (new since their university days) with instant noodles and beers (not new).

They got deep in the way that a group of guys did when downing beers by the fire. Hoseok had bought Yoohyun an engagement ring, and Yoongi and Siyeon had decided to try for a baby. Seokjin listened to the late-night conversation and to Namjoon’s enthusiastic congratulations. “Having a kid is the best decision you’ll ever make – provided you do it for the right reasons,” Namjoon said, and Seokjin wondered what those reasons were.

He also wondered if the others could tell. He had been trying to be his usual self around Namjoon during this trip – the old friend, not the recent lover. He had bit back impulses to fix Namjoon’s clothes and brush stray hairs from his forehead. He had stopped himself from pecking his lips while they had been unpacking in the campervan, but Namjoon had looked like he had read the impulse, giving him a knowing grin.

Such slips aside, Seokjin was keeping himself under control. Yoongi and Hoseok would have too many questions, after all: had Seokjin swooped in and seduced the impressionable baby bi, they might ask, who was half-delirious from sleep deprivation and baby talc as it was?

The beer flowed, but not too much – they intended to hike a mountain in the morning.

“You all sound like such grownups,” Seokjin said, taking a sip of his beer after listening to Hoseok lay out some wedding plans. “Me? I plan to buy the best gaming TV I can find – really splurge on a good set up once I get to move in. Jangkun never let me buy a TV as big as I wanted.”

“Now’s your chance,” Yoongi chuckled, a brief silence following his remark.

“Do you ever speak to him?” Hoseok asked from beside him, cheeks red with alcohol. “Jangkun?”

He shook his head, leaning towards the fire and poking the logs with a stick he’d found. “The love was dead,” he said. Sometimes love just died, like a terminal patient.

“You’ll find someone new, hyung,” Hoseok reassured. Namjoon was sitting right across from him.

Seokjin bit the inside of his cheek. “That’s not really my priority right now.”

He had learned a lot about self-sufficiency in the past few years. At the end of the day, you yourself were the only person you could really count on.

“He says that,” Yoongi cut in, wagging his finger. “He says that, and in five months he’ll be moving in with some guy he met on Grindr.”

He wanted to direct the conversation elsewhere. “Well, I can’t stay with Namjoon forever. Goodness knows Jungseob’s nanny is already suspicious of me living there, and she doesn’t even know her employer is bi.”

It wasn’t clear to Seokjin if Hoseok or Yoongi were surprised that Seokjin knew now, but they didn’t look it. They had perhaps assumed that with the two of them as roommates, Namjoon would organically tell Seokjin about himself, and Namjoon had in some ways – after kissing him and setting them on a course that was now impossible to change.

“You know, when Eunha-ssi came for the job interview, she asked if Jungseob’s mother had died,” Namjoon said, shaking his head and sipping his beer.

“No,” Hoseok gasped. “That’s just tragic!”

Seokjin didn’t know what made him poke at the sore spot. “See, you should’ve just married a nice girl, Namjoon-ah – save yourself from all these untoward rumours.”

“I guess I could have,” Namjoon said, and another silence followed. “But, turned out that a lot of women didn’t want to date bi guys. They expected me to cheat on them and that was the end of those dates. Then I’d go on a date with a guy only to be told that I had to stop lying to myself because clearly I was gay but in denial about it.”

Seokjin knew those “bi now, gay later” preachers, even if they were increasingly smaller in number. Fuck those guys.

“And,” Namjoon continued, as it dawned on Seokjin that Namjoon had never told him any of this, “of course there were guys who didn’t care either way because they just wanted sex. Whereas I… I wanted to start a family, and I soon realised it was slim pickings for someone like me. And when I turned thirty, I decided enough was enough, and it’s the best decision I’ve ever made.” Namjoon stared at the fire. “Jungseob is the best decision I’ve ever made.”

“He is,” Seokjin agreed. He hadn’t expected Namjoon’s decision to have Jungseob to involve Namjoon thinking that no one would ever want him.

“Fuck all of those people,” Yoongi said, leaning back in the camping chair tipsily. “And I mean, not that it’s a contest, but try explaining you’re bi when you’re married to someone of the opposite sex. People just don’t believe you – they want proof. Shit, do I need to cheat on my wife before they believe me? It’s insane.”

Namjoon nodded. “I get it, some girls didn’t believe me either – they asked me if I was sure. Like, what? Was I making it up on the spot? One said ‘but you don’t look it’.”

Yoongi scoffed. “Yeah, I’ve had that. We had this new conductor once and—”

Yoongi told his story while Hoseok was mostly quiet, eyes glassy from alcohol but nodding emphatically. Seokjin listened to Yoongi and Namjoon comparing notes, shaking their heads, drinking beers. Just because you belonged to a minority group of some description did not mean people in it could not be cruel to each other. The biggest highs and lows happened there too.

Fuck anyone who had made Namjoon think he could never find someone to love him. Fuck those people – how dare they?

Given this, maybe it was good Namjoon hadn’t figured himself out until later in life. He might have internalised those rejections in worse ways when younger.

As for all the guys who’d just wanted sex from Namjoon, well— Seokjin understood it, of course. Just look at Namjoon. But for some… for some. There was always a hope, no matter how deeply buried, that an anonymous encounter could turn into something more. That the sexual connection was so strong that it hooked them both, with something deeper lurking in it.

Love. Love, love, love.

That was what some, at least, really wanted.

Some.

He sipped his beer, belly full. Whenever he was pretending that he didn’t care was when he hoped someone would fall in love with him the most.

They wrapped it up around two in the morning, which was another change: when younger they had stayed up until five, six AM. Hoseok and Yoongi headed for the tent while Namjoon intended to sleep in the campervan with Jungseob, where it was warmer. Seokjin had volunteered to sleep there too.

There was a squished “double” bed in the back, next to the cot on the floor where Jungseob was sleeping. Namjoon tugged him in this direction now that they were alone. “I can’t,” he said, prying Namjoon’s arms from around his waist. “Yoongi always gets up early; he might walk in on us.”

“We’ll just be sleeping,” Namjoon protested, just a bit of a pouty drunk, and Seokjin could not say no.

He was mostly glad that in the privacy of the campervan, Namjoon did not ask him of his relationship plans, just as he did not probe deeper into the bad experiences Namjoon had had after his breakup with Hana and, indeed, with people who persistently pitied Jungseob. Insane to pity him – he was so loved. What was it that Namjoon had said? That having kids was a good decision, if the parents were doing it for the right reasons.

Jungseob had been the right reason.

Seokjin lay enclosed in the warm and sturdy embrace of Namjoon’s arms, but he sensed tension there. Too much lingered unsaid between them, but what of it? They had known each other for a very long time, and not all things needed to be said.

Namjoon pushed his head right into the crook of his neck, nosing at the skin there. Soon, Namjoon began to breathe heavily as he fell asleep. This, like a lullaby, let Seokjin relax and drift off.

Yet he woke up early – who knew when, but it was getting light outside. He disentangled himself from Namjoon’s embrace, moved quietly past the cot where Jungseob was sleeping, and climbed into the bunk above the front seats.

Once there, he looked across the campervan at Namjoon fast asleep in the bed, thinking how much better it would have felt to just stay in his arms.

Seokjin did not want to hike up the mountain. Namjoon and Hoseok were stretching by the campervan, lathered in sun lotion, and wearing sturdy hiking boots. Seokjin would willingly go for a run in the city or trail the hiking paths near their home, sure, but he was not an outdoorsy person to this degree.

“I’ll take the cable car later with Yoongi and Jungseob,” he said again. “We’ll meet you up there in a few hours.”

“Hyung,” Namjoon replied, with such pleading boyish eyes that Seokjin cursed internally.

“Yoongi might need help babysitting.”

Yoongi looked up from the sole camping chair still out, where he had been bouncing a giggly Jungseob in his lap. “Oh, we’re fine. I was changing my baby cousins when I was, like, twelve. Off you go, hyung. Seoraksan is, what? One thousand, six hundred meters?”

“One point seven,” Hoseok supplied helpfully, stretching his arms above his head.

“Hyung,” Namjoon said again, with an edge of pure disappointment because Seokjin had sort of promised.

This was how he found himself hiking up Seoraksan. It wasn’t that he was unfit – he just didn’t enjoy this.

The path was well-marked, however, and busy with hikers. As they climbed, the views of the surrounding mountains became increasingly stunning. Whenever they reached a scenic point where they could rest, Hoseok was on his phone, taking a group selca or just asking him and Namjoon to pose together. The latter left Seokjin flustered each time. He wanted to know what those pictures of the two of them looked like, and yet he thought that may be too much for him to know.

His legs and abs ached following a set of uneven but well-worn stone steps in the barren and open cliff face heading to the summit. He longed for death.

He stopped to catch his breath, taking in the view – he could see Sokcho in the distance and the sea beyond it. He looked the other way and knew that the lands in the distance were across the border. Birds were flying past him at eye level. A few other hikers passed him on their way down – lucky bastards. He got out his water and took a deep sip.

“You alright?” Namjoon’s voice came, and he glanced up to see Namjoon descending the stone steps that curved upwards and out of sight. He didn’t have Hoseok’s and Namjoon’s thighs of steel.

He nodded, and Namjoon reached him, concern on his brow. Namjoon slung an arm around his waist, holding him closer than was proper. “We’re nearly there.”

“You said that fifteen minutes ago.”

“We’re nearly there,” Namjoon repeated, eyes shining with mirth, and Seokjin let himself press against Namjoon and heave a sigh. Namjoon laughed, the sensation reverberating against him, followed by a kiss to his hair. “The faster we go, the sooner we can descend.”

This thought motivated him.

“Fine,” he said, pulling back and letting Namjoon peck his lips. He then stepped back quickly, letting go of Namjoon and squinting up at Hoseok who had appeared further up the stretch of jagged steps. “Ah, Hob-ah – we’re coming,” he called out loudly, hiding the fact that he was flustered and unsure of what Hoseok had seen.

Namjoon likewise stepped back, glancing at Seokjin as if for advice but he had none. He continued his ascend, Namjoon not far behind him.

When he reached Hoseok, the other said, “Not long now.”

“Yeah,” he said, heart beating fast but not from the exercise. Hoseok smiled at them both and led the way. Hoseok was not a good secret keeper – unless from afar he had, perhaps, only seen a friendly looking embrace, a “there, there, you can do it”.

Did he see, Namjoon’s gaze said when Seokjin looked over his shoulder.

I don’t know, his returned.

There was a queue to the summit. Traffic, even here! They waited and got their turn posing with the large marker stone, with all the surrounding peaks below them. Crowds stood taking pictures of the stunning views. Seokjin feared his left calf would cramp.

Hoseok was taking a zillion pictures. “What a view!”

Namjoon was a little further from them, taking a panoramic shot of the landscape. Seokjin stood there heaving, hands on his hips.

“Hyung?”

“Hmm?” he asked, squinting at Hoseok in the sunshine.

Hoseok nodded towards Namjoon. “You two seem happy.”

Seokjin flinched, taking a step back – and almost slipped on the cliff. His heart beat fast, panic settling in. This was why they hadn’t wanted their friends to know!

“I don’t know what you mean,” he mumbled, evasive. The two of them kissing? Never!

Hoseok looked amused by this. “Is it love?”

“What?” he asked, glad he was already sweaty and flushed. It was far too early to be asking these kinds of questions!

“Okay, I won’t ask,” Hoseok said, although he already had. Hoseok squinted in the sunshine. “Just… be good to him, hyung. You know?”

Hoseok looked concerned, and Seokjin felt guilt filling him. He never wanted to hurt Namjoon – never.

Namjoon reached them. “Group picture, come on!”

Seokjin returned to himself and focused on smiling at Namjoon. The three of them posed for a selca, and Hoseok wrapped an arm around Seokjin’s shoulders, giving him a squeeze – comforting, with a few friendly pats added as they pulled apart. Perhaps it was a bit of sympathy.

When they descended to the cable car station, Yoongi was there with Jungseob strapped to his chest and the baby supplies backpack on his back – and although it was hard to tell, Seokjin swore that Jungseob lit up at the sight of Namjoon.

“Well, you look five years older,” Yoongi said to him, and he was probably right. It just had nothing to do with the hike.

Did Seokjin have a heart?

Well, by default, yes. But did he use it? That was harder to answer.

Sometimes he was sure that he did, like when he and Namjoon were in bed together.

He loved Namjoon’s body. He loved how powerful it was and how he could make it tremble. He loved the small mole Namjoon had near his belly button, and the smaller one on his chest, and the faint press of a mole just under his lower lip. He loved the weirdest things, too, like how Namjoon was self-conscious over the fact that his balls were not completely symmetrical. There had to be an Achilles’ heel (or ball) somewhere, amidst the perfection in all the other parts of his body. Besides, Seokjin hadn’t even noticed any size difference there, although Namjoon said there clearly was. Seokjin had seen more memorable balls, to be quite frank.

He also loved that they had long, ridiculous, in-depth conversations about Namjoon’s balls.

He loved that Namjoon likewise loved Seokjin’s body – the praises Namjoon said in bed were more than clear on this. He loved how they fucked, just like they were doing this evening: going fast and hard, with Seokjin just a little needy. He looped arms around Namjoon’s neck, kissing him deeply as he stayed in Namjoon’s lap, riding his cock. Namjoon was sitting with his legs extended and back against the headboard, and Seokjin never wanted to get out of his lap but stay right there, whimpering.

They were covered in sweat, and Seokjin’s heart was beating fast and hard.

Did he have a heart?

He kissed Namjoon fervently, drowning the other’s moans as he moved his hips: moving in slow circles, then moving his hips up and down, then something more circular again… He could work his hips, and he could work a cock. Namjoon trembled beneath him, close to release.

Did he use his heart?

Namjoon grabbed his hips, pulled him even closer, staring up at him with an open and far-gone expression. Seokjin loved seeing him like this, the overwhelming intimacy of it, and the way Namjoon always sought eye contact during sex.

Was this love?

Seokjin squeezed the headboard behind Namjoon, his thighs shaking a little, the cock inside him pressing against his prostate so well. “Fuck…” he breathed, grinding down, his cock leaking pre-cum between them.

“Yeah, just like that,” Namjoon murmured, kissing him, bringing his hips down and not letting Seokjin pull off. “Just keep working it, baby, nice and deep,” Namjoon whispered, mouth on his jaw. “I know how close you are – come on, hyung, let me see you come…”

He did have a heart.

He did use it.

He felt it in moments like these when he fell apart in Namjoon’s arms.

They had grown accustomed to using Seokjin’s room as the fuck room, and Namjoon’s room as the sleeping room. Seokjin had said he was fine sleeping alone post-sex and that he would not be offended that Namjoon went back to sleep by Jungseob’s cot. Namjoon had called him ridiculous and, hand-in-hand, had pulled him across the apartment to the bigger bedroom so that they could sleep together.

Now falling asleep here, in Namjoon’s bed, was second nature, but he struggled falling asleep that night.

The bedroom was dark, the curtains drawn. Seokjin stared at the ceiling. “I had this recurring fantasy when Jangkun and I were going through our breakup.”

“Oh?” Namjoon asked, quietly inquisitive.

“On my morning runs, I often saw this guy – tall and sexy. He eyed me up sometimes. And I started going on more runs because I kept hoping that one day we’d fuck, right there in the park like he and I had been cruising all this time, and then I’d go home and tell Jangkun nothing.”

He wasn’t nervous to be telling this because he felt so detached from the story and from the people starring in it. He did that sometimes: considered himself as someone he had never met and could not even begin to understand.

“That’s fucked up, right?” he asked at length. “I mean, aren’t you going to tell me I’m an awful person for wanting to cheat on him?”

Namjoon turned to him in the dark. “Wanting to do something hurtful but not doing it… I don’t know. There’s probably an extensive philosophical school of thought on this, but in my view? Not doing it is more telling of someone’s character than wanting to do it in the first place.” Namjoon’s fingers brushed calmingly over his stomach. “Sounds like you don’t agree, though?”

He did not agree. He knew he was awful. Broken, wrong. What if he was like that with every person he ever fell for? What if that was just how he was built – incapable of loving someone else in the way they deserved to be loved?

“I think what that means,” Namjoon said against his shoulder, “is that Jangkun wasn’t the one for you. That’s all. But that only discounts him – one person. With someone else, it can be different.”

With Namjoon – the implication was obvious.

Be good to him, hyung. You know?

Hoseok had said that because he feared that Seokjin would hurt Namjoon. Who could blame Hoseok when Seokjin feared it too? Namjoon was so much better than him.

That was why he was telling Namjoon this, so that Namjoon could understand that he would be better off without him.

Oh, he thought.

Once more, he was getting ready to leave.

Seokjin had a missed call from the building company, but he knew by now what these calls signalled. He was therefore surprised when the voicemail said that his new home had passed the building inspector’s final checks and that the project was now fully finalised. They gave him a date on which he could finally move in, instead of another postponement. He could go visit his apartment in two days’ time if he wished to see it – he should call them to arrange a time.

He stood on the pavement in Gangnam, having come to do some shopping. He lowered the phone from his ear, clutching the bag from the children’s wear store. He had impulse bought three onesies, not that Jungseob needed more of those, but also they were such tiny clothes. How much space would they realistically take?

He would have a view of Namsan Tower. He would have a busy neighbourhood at his door. He would have the entire place to himself.

It was late spring, pushing into summer.

Namjoon was getting Jungseob started on solid foods: boiled, mashed, and then cooled down sweet potato. There had been sweet potato everywhere except Jungseob’s mouth that morning, and Seokjin had laughed so hard that his stomach had hurt, while Namjoon had fussed and tried showing Jungseob how to put the food into his mouth. Jungseob had just smeared it around.

Yes, it was late spring, pushing into summer – a time when everyone had to take off their winter coats and show the world who they really were.

Namjoon’s neighbourhood was newly invigorated by the warming days. A few restaurants and cafés had opened rooftop patios, and Seokjin headed to one of these after his visit to the new apartment. He hadn’t looked at the brochure in a while, although the first month or so after his purchase he had flipped through it often, trying to plan his life. Then, he had stopped.

He’d had no expectations of the place when he’d gone to visit. He had hoped not to like it; that he, out of desperation to buy a place, had made a grave error.

The apartment had been wonderful: spacious, with city views and large windows, his steps echoing in the empty rooms. Something in his chest loosened, something that had been there since the day they put their Rose Bay apartment for sale.

Here.

Here he would go, then.

His entire spring of waiting made sense now. Of course it had been difficult to be calm about a future that he could not visualise. Now he could visualise it and more.

But the relief? The joy? It did not come.

Namjoon went to the gallery four days a week. Depending on his schedule, he would take one weekday to stay at home with Jungseob. Today was one of such days, and Namjoon had asked him where he was off to. He had lied about a work meeting. He usually did these on his laptop, remote and virtual as nearly all of his business transactions were.

Yet Namjoon had not disbelieved him, and Seokjin worried about how good of a liar he was.

Now, Namjoon showed up to the café patio ten minutes after he had arrived. Jungseob was strapped to Namjoon’s chest – he even had his new little shoes on. “We dressed up for a café date,” Namjoon grinned as he sat down, eyes warm. They did not kiss, however, like they would have at home.

Seokjin went to order Namjoon an iced americano.

As he climbed the stairs back to the patio, he spotted Namjoon from a distance, talking to Jungseob who was now in his lap. Jungseob had grabbed a napkin from the table and was trying to shove it into his mouth while Namjoon was carefully peeling it away from him. All through Jungseob’s antics, Namjoon was smiling.

Seokjin’s steps slowed.

How could he know if the feeling inside him was love? What was it supposed to feel like?

Namjoon was bright to him – he had no other word for it. A revelation, made up in a fever dream on the island of Patmos. Seokjin could not dissect or understand their relationship, and he only hoped that scholars could reach consensus amongst themselves long after they were gone.

Of course it wasn’t normal to start seeing someone you were living with on a temporary basis, let alone when there was a baby to take care of, but somehow they had made it work. They had grown accustomed to waiting for Eunha to bow out for the day before kissing each other hello again, and Seokjin had made sure it was not obvious that he had started sharing Namjoon’s bed on most nights, taking his clothing back to his room so that Eunha would not notice. They fucked often, the way people did upon first infatuation – not a room in that apartment had been spared. Those kinds of things, of course, faded with time. What if it would all fade?

“You okay?” Namjoon asked when he sat back down, having successfully taken the napkin from Jungseob who was still trying to reach for it. Now that Jungseob had grown more, it was obvious that father and son looked alike: the same cheekbones, the same almond-shaped eyes.

Seokjin gave Namjoon the iced americano, feeling the warm air ruffling his hair. “I’m moving into my apartment next week.”

“Oh?” Namjoon adjusted in the chair, frowning like he did not quite understand. “Wait, the— the place you bought?”

He bit the inside of his cheek and nodded.

Namjoon’s frown deepened. “Are you sure? They’ve hardly—”

“This time it’s sure, yes. It’s all complete.”

He let this hang in the air between them. Jungseob’s gaze had focused on Seokjin, a happy, amused smile on his face.

“Well, that is… I mean, of course that’s great,” Namjoon said.

Great. It was great.

He had wanted Namjoon to say, ‘You can’t leave us! You’re a part of us now – you belong here, right here, with us.’

Seokjin pushed down the sorrow filling him up, focusing on the practicalities. “I’ll have to get a removal company to get my things from that Incheon storage facility. I packed that stuff so long ago, I barely remember what I own, to be honest. And I only have the few suitcases at your place, so it won’t take me long to pack up.”

“Well, I mean, don’t worry on our account. You can leave clothes and things – or have a drawer or something,” Namjoon said but it was clear he was making this up as he said it. Namjoon had not stopped to wonder what would happen when Seokjin moved out either. Well, that made two of them. “Where in Mapo-gu is it? It’s a big place. Are you by the river, more east or west? Do you know if the transport links back to Buam-dong are good?”

Namjoon sat across from him, already thinking this through like the problem solver he was. Just like that.

Seokjin had wished that Namjoon would ask him to stay; would look shocked and appalled, perhaps heartbroken, and said he didn’t know how to go on without Seokjin. Maybe then he would know how welcome he was in Namjoon’s life, and maybe then he would know if this was love.

But Namjoon did not ask, and Seokjin still did not know.

The removal company left forty boxes in the living room, which Seokjin had packed half a world away months ago. He, of course, had not labelled any of the boxes.

“Well, that was pretty dumb of you,” Yoongi said as the two of them sat on the floor of his new apartment, eating the jjajangmyeon that Yoongi had brought.

Out of his friends, only Yoongi had been able to help him move. Namjoon had left early that morning to visit an artist whose workshop was several hours away from Seoul. Jungkook had picked him up, and Namjoon had said he would come visit that evening if they got back early enough – if they were running late, he’d have to go back to Jungseob.

Seokjin still had his suitcases at Namjoon’s place. His bed and other furniture would only be delivered tomorrow, and as such he had one last night in Buam-dong.

Namjoon had still not asked him to stay.

He looked around the living room, unable to feel joy or even a sense of accomplishment. This had always been the goal: getting his own place, settling down in Seoul. But now…

“I think I’m in love with him.”

“Who?” Yoongi asked, cross-legged on the floor opposite him, slurping on noodles.

“Namjoon.”

Yoongi swallowed and wiped at his mouth, expression surprised. Seokjin glanced at him restlessly. “Hoseok didn’t tell you about us?”

“There’s an us? Since when?”

Seokjin had no simple answer to that.

Yoongi held up his hand. “Hold up, you need to explain yourself. You two are dating? Really? So you’re telling me Namjoon actually decided to shoot his shot?”

Seokjin avoided eye contact. “What do you mean?”

“Come on, he’s had a thing for you for like forever,” Yoongi said, which was certainly news to Seokjin. “What, you didn’t know? Well, I mean, neither did he, I guess, but trust me there was one very memorable night post-sexual awakening when all he talked about in a drunken stupor was how he’d always thought you were so sexy.”

Seokjin wanted video footage of this desperately.

Yoongi was studying him carefully. “I didn’t think he’d do anything about it, though – I mean, he’s kind of got his hands full.”

What had Namjoon been thinking when Seokjin first moved in? Well, given the level of exhaustion, probably nothing at all – but Namjoon hadn’t kissed him out of nowhere. Something had been there already, just simmering.

“Is it not… going well?” Yoongi asked after a few beats.

Seokjin’s throat felt tight. He did not dare to look at Yoongi, who had spent well over a decade with Namjoon and had been there through all of Namjoon’s relationships and work achievements, through all the breakups and growth spurts (emotional and physical), through the messy dating with girls and boys, and through Namjoon waiting for his son to be born.

He exhaled, poking at his noodles with no real appetite. He looked around his box-filled living room. “Well, the thing is that… that I kind of thought he’d ask me to stay. But… but that’s absurd, I get it now. He’s raising his son, and I’ve been in their way, and even if he and I…”

“He probably just thinks you want your own space.”

Seokjin didn’t want that. He didn’t.

“He just didn’t even ask me what I wanted,” he said feebly.

“You can’t exactly unbuy your apartment, can you?” Yoongi pointed out – and no, of course not. But…

Seokjin hesitated. “Hobi thinks I will hurt him, and the more I think about it, the more I think he’s right.”

“Hobi said that?”

“Well, no. He just… asked if we were in love, but I didn’t have an answer, so he… yeah. Told me to be good to him. Because there’s a chance that maybe I’m not good for him.”

Yoongi looked stumped. “Do you intend to hurt him?”

“Of course not.”

That was a ridiculous thing to ask. No one intended such things. He thought of that school of thought that Namjoon surmised must exist: if wanting to do something but not doing it in itself was bad. Did that same principle apply to the fear of doing something?

He bit on his bottom lip. “But it’s just that when I think about it, I’ve never committed to anything or anyone, so… what makes this time different? Like, how do you know? And how do you tell someone you might be in love with them, but also that you worry maybe you’re not? I mean, how do you know it’s love?”

Yoongi shook his head. “You don’t know it – you feel it.”

But all Seokjin felt lately was anxious worry and guilt. That was not what love was supposed to feel like.

At length Yoongi said, “You’ve always been very independent, even when you were with Jangkun, and Namjoon’s the same, following his own path. But maybe those paths were leading to the same place this entire time, huh? I think it’s great. I know Hobi thinks it’s great too; he’s just protective, you know? Namjoon’s had some bad experiences with guys, and Namjoon, well… Whether or not he knew it, he’s waited a long time to have a chance with you. Besides, now there’s Jungseob to think about too. Look, let’s call Hobi if you need his blessing to woo—”

“We’re not calling anyone,” he interrupted, scandalised.

Yoongi grinned. “Honestly, hyung? You two would be great together. And as for living apart, well, most couples do at the start, you know. It makes seeing each other even sweeter.”

“Yeah?” he asked cautiously, thinking it over. He could perhaps live with the idea of hurting Namjoon somewhere down the line because people were imperfect and could do hurtful things. He and Namjoon were grown, and relationships were complicated, and any relationship you had with anyone had the potential of causing grief. That he could accept.

Kim Jungseob had barely spent half a year in this world, however, and understood nothing of it. Jungseob had no concept of human complexity, no notion of evil, and no idea that people could disappear from his life.

He could live with hurting Namjoon, even if unintended, but he could not live with hurting Jungseob, even if unintended.

After Yoongi left, he walked through the empty rooms of his apartment. He and Yoongi had opened a few boxes and placed them accordingly: kitchenware to the kitchen, a box of clothes to the bedroom, a box of files and cables to his office.

He stopped at a window, spotting a hospital not too far away in the distance. He looked it up – a university hospital, with a specialised cancer research centre.

He looked around his empty apartment.

Who would come see him when he was in chemo?

It wasn’t Namjoon’s fault that they didn’t get to say goodbye properly. The artist Namjoon had gone to see lived in the countryside near Daegu and had his atelier near his family’s farmlands. The reception was poor, and the storm was unexpected. Seokjin hadn’t thought to bring a charger to his new apartment – there probably was a spare one in a box, but which one? – and when Namjoon’s calls had gone straight to voicemail, Namjoon had called his sister instead. She had picked Jungseob up for the night, and so Seokjin returned to an empty apartment in Buam-dong, instantly noting that the pram usually folded into the entryway was missing.

When his phone had charged enough for him to call Namjoon back, he got to hear his lengthy tale of woe. “We’re leaving first thing in the morning,” Namjoon said, only on a voice call due to the poor connection. “Taehyung said he is pretty sure he can use the tractor to pull Jungkook’s car out of the mud. Jungkook wanted to go dig it out with a shovel, but I just about managed to talk him out of it.”

“Alright,” he said, looking around at the empty living room: the empty playmat and the empty bouncer. The empty couch and the empty armchair. “I need to be at my place for eight o’clock – I’m getting furniture delivered.”

“I’m sorry I’m not there to help you,” Namjoon said.

“That’s alright,” he said.

“I miss you.”

Seokjin paused, longing spreading in him. “I miss you too.”

On his final night there, he packed his two suitcases. He zipped up the locks and left them by the front door. He stripped his bed, folded the sheets, and wondered how he could ever thank Namjoon enough for letting him stay. He then went around the apartment searching for anything he might have missed.

He slept in Namjoon’s bed, unable to make sense of the absence of Namjoon and Jungseob both. He knew it was Namjoon’s first night away from Jungseob, and he wondered if Jungseob could process that himself – if Jungseob wondered at all where they were.

He slept, but poorly.

In the morning, he brushed his teeth and packed the last of his toiletries. He’d left an energy drink in the fridge, which he needed to power through the day. It was the last thing he picked up, with a taxi on the way.

He looked at the small kitchen table. This was where Namjoon had first kissed him. He looked to the fridge. This was where he had first kissed Namjoon.

Somehow, he had spent a lifetime in this apartment.

The day was overcast, perhaps hinting at rain. The driver helped him load the suitcases, friendly and polite. They didn’t make conversation as they navigated the morning traffic. Namjoon texted that Jungkook’s car had been successfully rescued, and more than this the artist had agreed to sell his works in RKive. Seokjin did not send a text back.

The furniture company showed up at four past eight. Seokjin had paid for assembly because it was difficult to build flatpack furniture alone. He had learned that in his last year in Sydney.

He unpacked his kitchen boxes and watched three workers build him a bed, a chest of drawers, two bookcases, a sideboard, and carry in a couch. The TV of his dreams would be delivered and installed on the weekend. The men were efficient and diligent, and they bowed deeply at him when they were done.

Half a day, and his apartment looked like someone lived there.

He stepped out for a late lunch, the options nearby plentiful. He had a salad in an organic café full of students. No rain had fallen. Namjoon was back in Seoul and had picked Jungseob up from his sister’s.

I don’t think we have time to come by tonight, sorry.
is it looking nice? Send pictures
hyung?

He studied a young couple in the café who had a baby girl not be much older than Jungseob. She was cute and giggly, until she started to cry for no obvious reason. The dad picked her up, cooing and covering her in kisses – seconds later, she seemed unsure why she’d been upset. They looked happy. Were happy.

sorry, my hands are a bit full trying to unpack
give Jungseob my love?

He switched off his phone.

He walked back to his apartment and unpacked his suitcases, dumping all of his clothes on his new bed, the unused mattress bouncing. He had bed sheets in a box somewhere, but where?

He started putting clothes away into the wardrobe but realised he had no hangers. Fuck, he didn’t have anything. He shoved everything into the drawers and he continuously, persistently, without wavering listened to the absolute silence of his new home.

He felt it coming but pushed it down.

Amidst his shirts, something yellow caught his eye. It was a baby sock, so small that it weighed next to nothing. His home was silent.

He hadn’t known much about babies a few months ago but had thought that babies either cried or were silent.

Not true.

They constantly made noise – little grunts and huffs and puffs and gurgles. Lately babbling and the mimicking of words. Constant noise.

The sock on his palm was so small.

He slumped down, sitting on the floor of his bedroom, holding the sock in his hand. He turned it around, examined it from different sides, and thought how perfectly it fit Jungseob’s foot.

Everything was so quiet.

He was crying.

He squeezed the sock in his fist.

He buried his face in his hands, sobs rattling through him so violently that he struggled to breathe. There were no words for the loss rattling through him.

The route between Seokjin’s new place and Namjoon’s apartment was as follows: Seokjin first walked to Yonsei University Hospital. The street next to the large and imposing hospital buildings was wide with multiple lanes both ways, and traffic was frequent on it even at one in the morning. He walked along the road for a good while, following the adjacent smaller street with shops on the ground floors. When the wide road turned into a tunnel, Seokjin was at a loss. He had to turn into the residential streets of Bugahyeon-dong to go around the park that the tunnel ran under. Once out of the maze of small streets, he walked to Gyeonghuigung Park. The night-time streets were briefly busier here, with people making their way home after a night out. He walked past the bus stops, with office buildings rising around him.

He turned left at the Salvation Army Building, away from the long street of skyscrapers. From here, it was relatively straightforward: up the road for an hour, the skyscrapers now behind him and buildings returning to street level. Night buses slid past him, and although it was dark, the city was full of lights wherever he looked.

It was probably a two-hour walk if you took a more direct route and didn’t get lost, and, if you walked briskly, you could probably do it in an hour and forty minutes. He had taken two hours and forty.

He stood outside Namjoon’s building in the morning chill. The lights were not on.

Maybe he could just stand there – that was all. He’d just stand here. Why? Well, in case someone needed him. In case Jungseob needed him.

Because it was enough to validate his existence, he thought, if Jungseob needed him even sometimes. Even once a week would do.

But Jungseob would not need him if he forgot Seokjin even existed; if, when upset, Seokjin picked Jungseob up to cover him in kisses, but Jungseob would not be soothed because he didn’t know who he was.

And so he’d just stand here, on standby. As a reminder.

Someone drove past on a motorbike, and he remembered how sometimes these were the noises he’d heard up to Namjoon’s bedroom: the occasional motorbike, the occasional car. Otherwise the neighbourhood was quiet, and Namjoon’s steady breaths would lull him to sleep, and Jungseob’s breaths were likewise steady but too quiet to hear over Namjoon’s. Namjoon slept pressed to Seokjin’s back, an arm slung around him. It was comfortable.

The scariest thing he had ever felt or thought or perceived or conceptualised was his desire to be a part of the small family sleeping up on the top floor. To be a partner for Namjoon, to be a father for Jungseob. He had never wanted anything as much, and with that want came a thousand thoughts on how he’d fail at the job. It wasn’t a job where failure was acceptable.

That was, he reasoned, why Namjoon hadn’t asked him to stay.

He staggered backwards, crestfallen. The family upstairs wasn’t his – he didn’t have one.

The walk back lasted two hours and five minutes.

Seokjin was astonished he found his way back at all.

How did you know it was love?

Because it broke your heart.

“There you are,” Namjoon said, face lighting up. The French restaurant in Gangnam looked and felt pretentious, and the waiter who led Seokjin to the large round table even had a waxed moustache that he had curled at the tips. Did that come with a staff bonus?

It was Yoohyun’s birthday, on top of her and Hoseok’s recent engagement. Yoongi and Siyeon were also there, and Jungseob was dressed in the beige dungarees that he had still been too small for a month ago, with a brown t-shirt beneath, and little matching baby shoes.

The only vacant chair was next to Namjoon, and so this was where he took a seat. He had moved out a week ago. They had seen each other once, when Namjoon had dropped by to give him the laptop charger he had inevitably forgotten. Namjoon had kissed him then, looked around the place and praised the views, while Seokjin had forced a smile and thought: you kicked me out.

What an ungrateful thought to have.

After that, he’d had several work deadlines breathing down his neck, and he had worked twelve-hour days to get the projects done. With this kind of a mortgage on his head, he could not afford to lose clients.

Jungseob had grown visibly taller and bigger in a week. Seokjin swore that he had. Jungseob was looking around the table, reaching for whatever was close enough to grab, and Siyeon carefully reached over to pluck a knife further away. Jungseob looked at her, shocked, and his face twisted in anger.

“Okay, that’s not a big deal,” Namjoon murmured into Jungseob’s ear, turning him around and pulling him up against his chest as the waiter came to ask them for their orders. Seokjin ordered a soup and some lamb. He didn’t care what he ate.

Everyone, of course, wanted to hold Jungseob, who was passed around the table like a trophy. Namjoon looked grateful for the break. “I forgot how hard it is to mind him on my own,” Namjoon said, eating a goat’s cheese salad. “You really helped out, hyung.”

He said nothing but took a sip of the red wine. He watched Yoohyun baby-talk at Jungseob, who was trying to pull on her long black hair.

Underneath the table, Namjoon’s hand came to rest on his knee. His thumb drew a slow circle to his thigh. Seokjin looked over, and Namjoon was looking at him warmly. Namjoon asked, “What are you doing after this?”

No one at the table was looking at them.

“You want to come over?” Namjoon asked.

Come back for the night?

To be reminded that he no longer lived there?

“Oh! He’s got his sights on you!” Yoohyun laughed, and Seokjin turned to find Jungseob reaching out for him. Yoohyun passed him over – heavier, too. Jungseob had grown and gotten heavier. He smelled the same, however, and he looked at Seokjin brightly, like he was happy to see him. Namjoon’s hand was still on his knee.

How could he sit through a whole dinner? How could he bear this?

But he bore it, saying little, unable to look at Jungseob when he handed him back to Namjoon. Everyone noticed. Next to him, Namjoon grew increasingly concerned, glancing at him every so often. He shouldn’t have come. He should have faked a headache. He’d just wanted to see them so badly, but he’d had no idea how awful that would make him feel.

Between the mains and dessert, Namjoon said, “Hey, can I talk to you outside real quick? Noona, can you mind Jungseob for a few minutes?”

Siyeon took the baby without complaint, and Yoongi reached over to pet Jungseob’s cheek, giving him a bright gummy smile. If their friends watched them leave, Seokjin did not glance back to check.

He followed Namjoon outside like an ill-behaved student about to be schooled by his teacher.

The narrow street was full of small shops and eateries, with electric cables zigzagging between telephone poles. Namjoon took a few steps from the restaurant door towards the closed shop next door, and he followed. Namjoon turned to him. “What’s going on? Have you been sick?”

At this, Namjoon stepped closer and cupped his cheek.

He pushed Namjoon’s hand away. “Busy. Moving and decorating without taking any time off from work projects? Unwise.”

“Yeah, I thought you’d be overwhelmed. I thought that was why I’ve barely heard from you. But it’s something else.” Namjoon was studying him carefully. A step closer. “Hyung, you haven’t smiled a single time tonight. What’s going on?”

What wasn’t? Everything was happening, all the time. He was just one man, and he couldn’t handle all of this.

“It’s just difficult.”

Namjoon nodded, receptive. “Okay, it’s difficult. What is?”

He looked back towards the restaurant. “Seeing you two. I didn’t think it’d be so difficult. And I don’t— I don’t know if he even remembers me now.”

Namjoon frowned. “Jungseobie? Of course he does, you saw that. It’s been a week, hyung.” Namjoon reached for his hand, taking a soft hold of it. “Come over after this and spend the night? We can go to a park together in the morning – he met a dog for the first time this week, you should’ve seen it.”

But he hadn’t seen it.

“I’m not his dad.”

Namjoon’s benign smile faltered. “I know. I wasn’t trying to make you feel obligated. If you’re busy, then—”

“He met a dog? Did he like the dog? What else don’t I know? I used to know everything, and now I know nothing. You kicked me out, and so now I know nothing.”

The next thing he knew he was hyperventilating against Namjoon’s shoulder, with Namjoon’s arms firmly around him. “Breathe, just breathe,” Namjoon said, using the same soft tone he used with Jungseob, the one reserved for upset but irrational tantrums. “Hey, I didn’t kick you out. Your place was ready – I thought you wanted to go.”

He shook his head.

“No? But it’s all you’ve talked about since you moved in,” Namjoon said, arms around his upper back. “You’ve spent who knows how much on all new furniture. I thought you needed your own space.”

He shook his head, starting to cry.

“Did you want to stay with Jungseob?”

He nodded, hands clutching the shirt at Namjoon’s waist. “I love him.”

“I know you do.”

“No, I mean— I would jump in front of a moving car to save him. I would give him a kidney, a heart, and a liver. I would go a week without eating to make sure he’s well fed. And now I don’t see him. I don’t see him, and I don’t see you, and life is like it was before: quiet and awful, without any purpose. And I miss him so much.”

Namjoon stepped back, looking at him in wonder. “You love him.”

He nodded, confirming it. That wasn’t Namjoon’s fault. That was no one’s fault.

Namjoon glanced at a couple walking past them, and Seokjin pulled himself together, drying his eyes, taking deep calming breaths. Namjoon still had a hand on his elbow, holding him. “Honey, I never wanted you to feel obligated or… or pressured into anything. I mean, I’m a single dad, and that’s not exactly a hot ticket, and you don’t particularly like kids – and that’s fine, not everyone does. And—”

“He’s not just some kid, though, is he?”

Namjoon stalled, then said, “No. But I’m his appa so I would say that. You know, I… I asked you, though. Even recently, I asked if you wanted kids, and you said no. And me and him? That’s both or nothing.”

“I don’t want kids,” he said, because that answer was simple and clear. Not in the abstract, not as this vague idea of a life achievement. He didn’t want that. He pointed at the door. “But I want Jungseobie.”

“Hyung,” Namjoon said softly, a touch of pity to his tone.

He bit on the inside of his cheek, calming down. “And I wanted you to ask me to stay.”

Namjoon looked newly surprised. “You did?”

“Silly, right?” he said – exhaling but feeling better because it was out of his system now. His love was out there, no longer locked up inside his heart that he used. He used it. He did use it. “And I think I’m in love with you, or, at least, I’m in the process of falling in love with you, but you seemed so nonchalant about me leaving that I thought you must want me gone. And it’s not… it’s not your fault if I took us sleeping together for being more than it is, or if you’re not sure you could ever feel that for me, but if you— if you think you’d like some help with Jungseob, then I’d still like to see him.”

Namjoon tugged him closer as a cyclist sped past them, and Seokjin became aware of the people on the street where he was letting his heart bleed.

“How about we go get Jungseob and go somewhere to talk, alright? Is that okay?” Namjoon asked, hand cupping his face again, making that same trusting eye contact that he made when they made love.

“It’s Yoohyun’s birthday—”

“I’ll say you have a headache. Wait here. Wait right here, alright? Don’t go,” Namjoon said, stepping back.

“They know,” he said in afterthought, motioning at the restaurant.

“I know,” Namjoon said before disappearing inside.

The green tea that Kim Minjin religiously brought Namjoon from Jeju was fragrant. It warmed up the small, round teacup, the bitter scent of it pleasant.

Jungseob had had a tantrum when they’d gotten in – it was way past his bedtime, so it was understandable that he wasn’t happy. Namjoon had spent well over half an hour getting him to fall asleep, and in that time Seokjin had had two cups of tea. When Namjoon eventually emerged from the bedroom, he looked as tired as Jungseob had been.

“We can talk some other time,” Seokjin offered, feeling like a beggar at the door of a well-off household, but Namjoon shook his head.

Namjoon sat on the couch next to him and took his left hand between his own – and just held it there. “You know, it’s been tough without you. I’ve thought— god, how did I ever do this on my own? And he misses you. He misses you singing him to sleep. I don’t have a voice like yours.”

“You sound like nails on a chalkboard.”

“Spare my feelings, why don’t you?” Namjoon said, watching Seokjin put his teacup onto the coffee table.

Seokjin, to his immense surprise, was no longer very nervous. He felt freed, having said everything he’d wanted to say. If this came to nothing, if this all burned down, it wouldn’t be because he had passively let it slip him by. He had tried. He had said how he felt and what he wanted. That alone made him feel much lighter, the anxious guilt easing.

“So, I didn’t like you when I first met you,” Namjoon said.

Seokjin frowned. “I know that, but you shouldn’t hold it against me now.”

“No, I mean that I didn’t like you because I was attracted to you,” Namjoon said, and Seokjin stilled. Yoongi hadn’t lied, then. Namjoon pulled him a little closer. “I just— didn’t know how to make sense of how you made me feel back then. And then you got together with Jangkun, and I never liked him either because he was one of those business major jerks who said humanities students would never see a single won, so I had plenty of reasons not to like him, but— but really I was just jealous that you’d show up holding his hand.”

Namjoon was now holding his hand.

“And I processed at some point while you were gone that this… tension I always felt around you was attraction. And I wasn’t always nice to you because that pull made me feel unsafe, although that was… not your fault, of course.”

“I just thought you lacked social skills,” he said faintly.

Namjoon made a face. “Ouch. Thanks, I guess?”

“Back then, I mean. You’ve got them now.”

Namjoon laughed, thumb smoothing circles to the back of his hand. “Lucky for me, then. You know, I remember how, after I came to terms with my sexuality, you’d come and visit sometimes, showing up for a single night, and it was just… such a reminder that you were my type, and that I was just dating these subpar versions of you. And then… this year. You came back for good, without Jangkun. And then you moved in with me.”

Namjoon glanced at him restlessly. “And when I asked you to move in, I thought I was over it – the crush, the decade old attraction. God knows I wasn’t thinking about my feelings for you when I had Jungseob to look after, and I was so tired and stressed about everything else. But— But I wasn’t over that attraction. I’ve never been over it, and I don’t think I’ll ever get over it. Every time I kiss you, that nineteen-year-old in me is about to faint.”

Seokjin huffed at the thought, especially when Namjoon always kissed him with such confidence.

“I didn’t mean to kick you out,” Namjoon said slowly. “I know we’re sleeping together, and I know you care for Jungseob, but you hadn’t shown any interest in taking it further.”

“So what did you think would happen?”

Namjoon shrugged. “That we’d keep seeing each other, and I’d pine for you like I always have.”

“Sounds miserable,” he noted.

“Yeah, but… but I thought if I got lucky and played my cards right, I’d woo you back to us.”

Seokjin was already wooed.

Namjoon took his other hand – now holding both. “Let me make this extremely clear, alright? From you? I will take whatever you want to give. Just tell me what you want, and I’ll meet you there. You want to come by every now and then, and be Jungseob appa’s cool boyfriend? Okay, let’s do that. Or, you want to split your time between my place and your place more evenly, and maybe be here every other evening for Jungseob’s bedtime to sing him to sleep? Alright, let’s do that instead. Or do you think you might want to move back in with us in a few months’ time, although you just bought a whole new place and spent all this money on fixing it up? Okay, let’s move in together before the summer’s over – we could make that work. Or, do you want to stay here tonight, and tomorrow morning call a removal company to help you move back because we’re in love and don’t know how to be apart anymore? Then okay, let’s do that. Let’s do it.”

Namjoon paused to take a breath. “Do you understand? Whatever you want us to be, we can be. Together we can figure it out. At least, I know I’d like to. I’d like to because I know I will love you for a very long time.”

For a while there… For a while.

For a while there Seokjin had thought no one would love him in this life. Not really, not properly. He had friends and yes, he spoke to his brother once a week, and some of his clients would absolutely mourn him if he suddenly died. Other than that, however, he was alone in the world, and he wasn’t important to anyone.

That was okay.

Not all people could be special to someone.

Not all lives could be important.

His life would just be one of those – overall inconsequential, drifting like a grain of sand in the endless deserts of history where no one would go looking for him. He just hadn’t managed to build a life where he was loved by many, if any. Not really. Not properly.

For a while, this was the fate he’d accepted for himself.

Namjoon’s touch pulled him up from the dunes.

“I like the one where I get to sing lullabies.”

“Which one was that?” Namjoon asked.

He frowned, unsure, before pulling Namjoon closer. “I don’t remember.”

Not everyone thought kids should be brought into art galleries. They got restless, noisy, ran around and overall did not respect the silent, ecclesiastical decorum that marked the practice of art-viewing. This did not apply to poor motherless Kim Jungseob, however. He got rowdy if he was left in the pram, but if Seokjin picked him up and carried him around, Jungseob paid attention. Mostly this was to colours – blues, greens, reds. Jungseob loved pinks.

And so Seokjin and Jungseob focused on these, seeing as Jungseob was far too little to understand the use of texture to evoke feeling. “He might understand texture if we let him touch the painting,” Seokjin said.

Namjoon balked. “No. I cannot be banned from the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art.”

“Your appa is a monster,” he whispered into Jungseob’s ear and walked over to the next painting. Namjoon held his hand.

Saturdays were family outing days. These were good days, even it at the start Seokjin had worried often. What if he took this back? What if in two years he found himself suffocating from the repetition of days?

Those were worries one easily had when life had never been something you enjoyed; when years were nothing but faded copies of themselves, and you struggled imaging a future that was brighter. These days he wanted time to go slow – for time to stand still altogether so that he could live his days over and over, sitting on the floor of their Buam-dong living room as Jungseob learned how to walk, taking his first few wobbly steps into Seokjin’s arms. He wanted time to stand still when he walked into their bedroom to find Namjoon sitting on the bed cross-legged with Jungseob sitting in the space between his legs, as Namjoon read out the children’s book for a curious Jungseob.

Seokjin had wondered for years where he would go – where would he fit, or was he simply a lone puzzle piece that could not be used to create a bigger picture?

Namjoon was a tactile partner. He hugged Seokjin in the mornings, evenings, when tired, when happy, when pouty, when flirty. And ah, Seokjin thought each time: this was where he fit well, in Namjoon’s arms.

“Look,” Namjoon said, tugging on his hand while pushing the empty pram along as they crossed the gallery floor. “This is one of Lee Jungseob’s sketches.”

The drawing had been made on yellowing paper, although Seokjin doubted it had been in better condition even at the work’s conception. The small plaque said, simply, ‘Three People.’ Two sleeping figures took up the upper and lower halves of the drawing, with the upper one lying right to left, head hidden in his arms, and the bottom figure left to right, with an arm slung over his face – sleeping soundly. In the right-hand corner was the third figure: a man sleeping with raised knees, his arms wrapped around them, but this made him look small and childlike.

Namjoon examined the drawing carefully, arm coming to circle Seokjin’s waist to hold him close. Jungseob was not very interested as there were no bright colours. The painter probably hadn’t had the money for them then.

Seokjin passed Jungseob onto Namjoon, who took the boy easily but let out a grunt to indicate how hefty the one-year-old now was – this always made Jungseob laugh.

Seokjin stepped closer to the drawing, taking in the detailed shading, the sharp scratches, the soft curves.

He liked it.

He liked it tremendously.

He turned back to Namjoon and their son. “It’s us.”